Healing and the Human Heart
by bluedawn01
Summary: A chameleon-arched, war-rended Ninth Doctor is deposited by his TARDIS with some old friends for help. Along the way, he'll have to learn again how to hope, how to love and, hardest of all, how to heal.
1. The Back Garden

**You should know a few things about this story:**  
**1) It did not go anywhere I thought it would. I originally was going to write a Victorian-era chameleon-arched Eight romance with Rose. This is, quite obviously, not that. Hopefully I still do that. I love me some Eight/Rose.**  
**2) I've been reading a lot war-torn Nine stories lately and I love them. If you've not read Never Quite Normal you should go read it immediately. I'll still be here when you get back.**  
**3) I've always wanted to write Alistair, Doris, Harry and John.**  
**4) I also quite love Nine. This probably came about because I was just finishing up his last chapter of Shades of Blue and couldn't seem to bear to let him go.**

**So my question to you, dear readers: Are you interested in this story?**

* * *

Doris Lethbridge-Stewart was just sitting down for a nice cup of tea with her husband when, quite suddenly, a loud, strange noise began to emanate from her back garden. With a surprised look at her husband who had nearly dropped his cuppa, she hurried out followed closely by him to see a Police Box materialize just beside her rose bush.

They stood staring at the door for a moment before it swung open, seemingly of its own volition. Alistair frowned and stepped into the ship first with Doris on his heels. He swung his head around, taking in the surprising almost organic interior of what had to be the Doctor's ship. No sign of the Doctor, however, any form of him that Alistair knew...or any form of him at all for that matter, it seemed.

"Doctor?" he called out into the bowels of the large room. The air around them was curious and felt heavy, almost with emotion. It made the hairs on their arms stand up.

No answer.

"Hello?" Doris asked quietly, walking up to the center console and, despite the sound of discouragement from her husband, laying her hand on the coral just shy of any buttons or levers.

Suddenly the air changed and Doris felt almost welcomed, like she had just walked into her own home after being gone for a long time. The screen in front of her lit up to a brilliant blue and, to both their genuine surprise, words appeared.

_Hello,_ it read in big friendly white letters.

Alistair moved forward to stand in front of Doris, edging her away from the console and eyeing the screen warily. They watched as the words shifted around.

_I apologize for this crude form of communication, DorisLethbridgeStewart-mateofBrigadierGeneralAlista irLethbridgeStewart-human-friendoftheDoctor and BrigadierGeneralAlistairLeth bridgeStewart-mateofDorisLethbridgeStewart -human-friendoftheDoctor, but your mind is not formatted in a way that accepts telepathic connection and I cannot speak to you in an auditory fashion that would make sense to your human minds, _she read off the screen, staring wide-eyed at the console when she was finished. The Time Rotor in front of her glowed a bright green and she felt apprehensive encouragement wash over her. Alistair, reading beside her simply pursed his lips more firmly and frowned a bit deeper.

Doris sighed. Apparently talking out loud to alien spaceships fell on her side of the "friend of the Doctor" job description.

"That's all right, ah..." she trailed off. What did one refer to a Police box shaped space ship as?

_You may refer to me as TARDIS, if you wish,_ the monitor in front of her read.

Both Doris and Alistair looked at it in surprise and they watched as words formed again.

_Yes, I can, in fact, read your thoughts, DorisLethbridgeStewart-mateofBrigadierGeneralAlista irLethbridgeStewart-human-friendoftheDoctor but I mean no harm. I will not look at your memories, _the screen read while the air around them hummed comfortingly and, if she felt it correctly, a bit apologetically. A second later the screen changed. _And to answer your question, BrigadierGeneralAlistairLeth bridgeStewart-mateofDorisLethbridgeStewart -human-friendoftheDoctor, so can the Doctor. Although, he is more aware of your cultural and species norms, and able to communicate in your primary verbal fashion thus he shields extensively while on Earth._

The Brigadier's mouth dropped open slightly and Doris smiled. "You can just call us by our names, TARDIS," she said.

_Very well, DorisLethbridgeStewart,_ the screen said and Doris could have sworn the room around them smiled as well.

Alistair, having recovered from his shock, it seemed, stepped closer to the screen. "So why did you end up in my back garden, TARDIS?" he asked, full of authority but feeling a bit silly about talking into thin air.

_The Doctor and, I, by extension, need you,_ the screen read after a hesitant pause and the air around them grew heavy and tense.

Doris looked up at her husband and could see the concern for his old friend etched there along with his apprehension. "Where is he?"

The light in the Time Rotor flickered for a moment before the screen read, _This way._

All along the floor, lights glowed along a path back out of the console room and down the hallway. Alistair turned and walked briskly toward the lit door at the end with Doris trailing behind.

They both walked into a room which appeared to be a medical bay of some sort. Clinical white walls surrounded a shiny metal table, a multitude of complex machinery and monitors and, lying in a single stiff bed, a tall, lanky man dressed in dark jeans, a black jumper and a leather jacket. He appeared to be unconscious and unmoving but other than the strange headset device hanging from the ceiling near him, no other machines were hooked up to him.

The monitor over Doris' left shoulder suddenly read, _Yes, that is him. Let me introduce to you the Ninth form of the Doctor._

"What happened?" Doris asked softly, reaching out to touch the still face of the grim looking man.

After a long pause in which sorrow and remorse hung heavy in the air, the screen changed to read, _There was a war._

After a moment those words faded away and were replaced.

_And we lost._


	2. The Change

A soldier, then, Doris thought. She could see that, even in the man's unconscious state in his closely cropped hair, his severe jaw and the tortured expression on his face even as he slept.

"What kind of war?" Alistair asked, noting all the same characteristics his wife had and a few more only a fellow soldier would see.

_A war across all of time and space,_ the screen in front of him read. The words began to flicker by faster and the air grew more agitated. _A war that threatened everything. A war costlier than any that has ever been, will ever be. A war fought by the Time Lords for the past, the present and the future. A war from which we two are the only survivors, _it finished and they could practically taste the sorrow in the air.

"The Time Lords...?" Alistair began.

_All dead. And their TARDISes with them,_ the screen read. _"You see before you the Last of the Time Lords."_

"I'm sorry," Doris whispered.

_Your words of solace are noted and appreciated, DorisLethbridgeStewart._ Briefly, Doris felt as though her words had, indeed, been warmly appreciated.

"How are we to help?" Alistair asked, his eyes flickering back to the immobile man in the bed.

_I have seen in his memories of you that you are a soldier, BrigadierGeneralAlistairLeth bridgeStewart, and that you are honored and respected by him._ Alistair's stoic expression faltered for a moment, taking in that sliver of information. _He needs someone, several someones in fact, to help him heal,_ Doris and Alistair read off the monitor.

"Heal?" he asked. "He looks fine to me," Alistair said, dreading the TARDIS's response.

_You are aware, as am I, that not all the wounds of war manifest themselves physically,_ the TARIDS said on the screen, and they felt the seriousness of the words hanging around them.

When neither human spoke again for a moment, the screen flickered and read, _He has already tried to kill himself four times since his regeneration. They have been unsuccessful attempts, mostly due to the sheer tenacity of Time's hold on him. This last time, however, he almost managed,_ it read, sadly. Doris suddenly shivered, feeling vicariously what it was like to watch a friend self-destruct.

What did you do, old friend? Alistair asked, turning his attention once more to the Time Lord whose cold hand his wife was currently clutching.

_He attempted to overdose on aspirin,_ the screen read once Alistair looked up again.

"Aspirin?" Alistair, asked, genuinely surprised. Surely a millenium old alien could find something more deadly to kill himself with than aspirin.

_Aspirin is one of the most deadly and toxic poisons known to a Time Lord,_ the screen read quickly. _It would not only have killed him but also prevented his regeneration, which was his intention. He did not merely want to die. He wanted to die for good. _The air was once again heavy with remorse and regret.

"How did you save him?" Doris asked quietly, tracing the Time Lord's palm with her hand.

_I did about the only thing I could do, _the TARDIS responded, the words appearing slowly on the screen.

Doris and Alistair stared at the blinking cursor until more words appeared.

_I turned him into a human, _it read.

-

Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart prided himself on being a steady man. Unflappable, unsurprisable, solid.

The Doctor somehow always managed to circumvent that.

"You what?" he asked, once his jaw had decided to begin working once more.

_I turned him into a human, _the screen read once more. _Once human, his biology rather efficiently, if rather messily, expunged the aspirin from his system and I then forced him into a healing coma which is what you see at the moment, _the screen continued. _I have been replacing his memories and setting up a credible backstory for his human counterpart._

"So he is just a human now and he doesn't even know who he is?" Alistair queried, growing a little angry in defense of the helpless man.

_His human-ness is only temporary, _the screen flashed quickly as if the TARDIS were trying to explain itself. _All of his Time Lord essence and memories are stored in that pocket watch, _it continued, an arrow flashing toward the intricate pocket watch sitting on the medical tray next to the bed. Doris reached a hand out toward it but the lights in the room suddenly flashed red and they felt a negative impulse wash over them. _I would not touch it at the moment, DorisLethbridgeStewart, _the screen flashed. _He will not harm you but his Time Lord essence is currently awake and...not happy. _The air changed and the TARDIS seemed guilty but determined.

_He will thank me one day, I hope, but right now he cannot see past his guilt and sorrow to any future, much less a future of his own._ The words appeared on the screen slowly, letter by letter as if drawn out from their owner with great pain.

"What do you need us to do?" Alistair asked after a long pause and a meaningful glance from his wife who had yet to let go of the large, calloused hand she had been holding.

_I need your help doing what I cannot: helping to set him up with a normal, human life until he has healed and offering love and support to help him become who he once was. It will not be easy. _The TARDIS's request hung heavy in the air until Alistair nodded briefly once and Doris squeezed the unresponsive palm. It then changed to light and happy, thankful and relieved.

_Excellent. Thank you, DorisLethbridgeStewart and BrigadierGeneralAlistairLeth bridgeStewart. The Doctor always chooses his friends well. Now I believe he has a bank account with UNIT still which should suffice to set him up with a flat..._

Doris stopped reading the screen, letting her husband and the TARDIS figure out how to set up his fake human life. She merely considered the unconscious man lying in front of her. She had seen him do many remarkable things, be many remarkable things and help a remarkable amount of people. If she could pay him back even one small amount for all the love he had shown this world and countless others like it, she would, they would.

The Universe needed the Doctor but, for now at least, the Doctor needed them.


	3. The Reinforcements

Doris stayed standing next to the immobile man in the bed, stroking his unresponsive hand and listening to her husband mutter about flats, bank accounts and jobs as he read from the screen.

Human.

That was certainly going to take some getting used to. And he wouldn't even know it. She thought back to the Doctor she knew, the velvet-coated, cape-wearing dandy. He had been so restless and, at least in the beginning, resentful of his confinement to Earth. Would this human version have an insatiable wanderlust? An unexplainable disdain for his now-fellow man?

Then she considered what the TARDIS had told them about the War. If his genius mind and thousand-year experience hadn't been able to cope, how would a simple human brain? She remembered his (more than) occasional rants on Time Lords' genetic, mental and emotional superiority to humans at the dinner table with Alistair, John and Harry. How could being human help him at all?

She heard a slight cough to her left and raised her eyes from the Doctor's still form to meet her husband's gaze. He gestured to the monitor screen with his head and she turned from him to read it, realizing that the TARDIS must have been listening to her thoughts and chosen to answer her unspoken question.

_DorisLethbridgeStewart_, it read and the air took on an affectionate aura. She could almost imagine those words being spoken with a slight smile.

_Humans_, the screen read and again the air fluctuated with affection. This time she and Alistair could swear it had been said with a slight smile and shake of a loving head.

_Humans are truly amazing little creatures. We have watched you grow and flourish from your first steps in the Terran mud to your last venture through the stars. Do you not find it curious that he returns to Earth Time after Time? Decade after decade? That he shows more affection for you than he ever has his own kind? There is, within the human spirit, the universe's most colossal capacity for love and its most monstrous magnitude for cruelty. You are capable of and, indeed, accomplish most astonishing things throughout your species' long and prosperous history. But the one thing that humans have mastered greater than any in Time and Spaces, is its ability to survive. Your individual lives are so fleeting, a butterfly's life, compared to our own and yet you cram more living into those few years than most would in a hundred times that. Even against the most overwhelming of odds, you not only survive but flourish! You survive and find happiness in the darkest of days. You survive and find the hope for a better tomorrow. You survive and find love even where it is least likely. This is truly your gift to both the universe and to the Doctor,_the TARDIS finished.

Alistair and Doris stood, speechless, staring at the screen for several moments. Then they both came up with simultaneous questions. Alistair had his doubts about how successful this endeavor would be and had even more doubts that he and Doris could accomplish it alone.

Doris had fixated on the TARDIS' mention of love. What if the Doctor, the human one, fell in love? Was that possible? Was he capable of that most human of human emotions?

_BrigadierGeneralAlistairLeth bridgeStewart, do not worry. You will not have to accomplish this on your own. I have seen to it that…reinforcements, shall we say,_ the TARDIS chuckled in their minds, _are already on their way here._ That far from comforted Alistair as he wondered who the Timeship could possibly have contacted and how. He didn't need any more aliens running around Earth. The Doctor caused enough trouble on his own. That TARDIS' chiming laugh rang out again and the tips of the General's ears turned a bit red.

_And DorisLethbrigeStewart, your concern is one I have seen to as well. The Doctor would scoff and the idea of loving someone — that 'most human of human emotions' as you put it. It would not have even occurred to him though I believe he has secretly longed for it. Time Lords do not, as a rule, do such things. He however has never been one for following the rules. He will, indeed, fall in love. Twice, in fact. Once as a human and once as a Time Lord. Somewhere in time there are four broken hearts and it is time they were mended. The one who was lost shall heal his shattered human heart and then she shall be returned to the two-broken-hearted and they shall heal each other. This, too, I have taken care of/will take care of/have already taken care of,_ the TARDS finished.

Doris and Alistair didn't know what to make of that and Alistair had no idea how to even comprehend the idea of the Doctor, THE DOCTOR, falling in love. And not once, but TWICE! If he could only see that velvet-frocked Science advisor now! Oh, the things he would say to the pompous alien now…

Well, he'd believe it when he saw it.

Doris was comforted to know that he would not be alone forever. "There's someone for everyone," she said, squeezing her husband's hand and smiling at him gently. He returned her smile with the slow, cherishing smile he reserved only for her and the TARDIS pulsed warmly around them in what Doris interpreted as a cooed "Awww".

_Now, I have some further preparations to make,_ the TARDIS screen read. _And you will have some guests arriving momentarily,_ she finished.

Doris gave one last squeeze to the hand of the unconscious man in the bed and Alistair, feeling a bit silly, nodded to the monitor screen they had been reading. The monitor turned itself off and the floor once again lit up, leading the two humans out of the ship.

They had no more arrived back into the house when the front doorbell rang. Alistair and Doris exchanged a long look and padded together through the house to see just what 'help' the TARDIS has provided. Taking a deep breath, Alistair pulled open the door to reveal…

John Benton.

"Benton!" he exclaimed, clapping the slightly grayed and slightly heavier version of one of his oldest friends on the doorstep.

"General," Benton replied with his trademark boyish grin, grasping the older man's hand and giving it hearty shake. "Ma'am," he said, nodding over to Doris who was standing nearby.

"Oh, none of that, John!" she exclaimed, walking over to draw him into an embrace. "How has the United Nations been treating you?"

"Quite well, actually," Benton replied. "I was surprised to get the call back to UNIT so soon, but I'll be glad to be back in the homeland. No one makes fish and chips like we can."

"Call back to UNIT?" the General asked, furrowing his brow slightly.

"From the Bridgadier General himself," Benton replied with a slight laugh. "I know you're getting long in the tooth sir, but forgetting a letter you sent last week? That's not like you."

"I didn't…oh," Alistair sighed. "Reinforcements," he said, making John furrow his brow slightly.

"Sir?" he asked, stepping over the threshold into the living room and putting his coat into Doris' outstretched hands.

"You'd better come in, Sergeant, I mean, Lieutenant, my apologies. Old habits die hard," he said, with a smile.

"It's alright, sir. Feels strange to have you call me anything else," Benton said with another grin.

Doris was just about to offer him a cup of tea when the front door bell rang again.

"Expecting someone else?" Benton asked, raising his eyebrow. Alistair heaved a sigh.

"Who knows," he grumbled and stalked off to the door.

Once he was out of ear-shot, Benton turned to Doris looking concerned. "What's going on?" he asked.

"I think it's best we wait until we see who's at the door and I'll let Alistair explain," Doris replied. "I'm going to go put the kettle on."

At the door was, to no great surprise, a newly called back to service from a very lucrative private practice, an immaculately dressed, rather confused Harry Sullivan.

"Harry!" John greeted loudly when the quiet little Doctor had made his way into the living room. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm not sure," he replied with a slight smile. "I received a letter from the General asking me to come visit him today at this time and so, here I am."

"Apparently we're the reinforcements," Benton said, stuffing one of Doris' biscuits in his mouth.

Harry looked slightly alarmed. "Reinforcements for what?"

"No idea," Benton replied through a mouthful of crumbs.

"Benton! Sit up and don't talk with your mouth full," Alistair barked, entering the room.

"Yes, sir!" Benton snapped, immediately sitting up ramrod straight and spraying a few more crumbs on poor Harry. Doris fought to contain the twitch of her smile as she saw Alistair doing the same.

"Gentlemen, I think you'd best come with us," Alistair said, gesturing out the door in front of him. Harry stood and brushed some invisible lint off his trousers and Benton grabbed another biscuit to follow the General. They both stopped stock still when they saw a proud blue telephone box standing next to the Generals prize rose bush.

"Should have known," Harry muttered and Benton clasped him on the back, before following the General through the suddenly open TARDIS door. Harry gestured politely for Doris to proceed him into the console room and then gasped when he stepped inside.

"It's different in here," Benton commented, peering around at the eerie green coral glow.

Harry had wandered over to one of the monitor screens and barely contained his small yip of surprise when it suddenly lit up and read, _Hello HarrySullivanMD-human-friendoftheDoctor._ Benton, attracted to the monitor at Harry's quiet noise of surprise, peered at it interestedly when the text changed to read, _And hello,JohnBenton-human-friendoftheDoctor." _Wide-eyed, they both turned to Doris and Alistair who looked non-plussed.

"She does that," Doris said with a smile, patting the nearest coral strut. The TARDIS thrummed at her happily.

"Who does that?" Harry asked, his voice rising in pitch ever so slightly.

"The TARDIS," Alistair replied. Then, with the help of the TARDIS, Doris and Alistair explained to the other two men what had happened since tea-time this morning and the TARIDS explained each of their roles to them as they made their way to the MedBay. If Harry and John were surprised to see the new form of the Doctor, they hid it well.

_JohnBenton, he will need a friend, a confidant, close to his apparent human age. Your bright spirit will be of great assistance to him as he attempts to relearn joy. You are also of appropriate physical size to restrain him in the unlikely event he would need it._ John nodded and looked down on the severe features of the unconscious man in the bed.

_HarrySullivanMD, you will be able to monitor his physical wellness as he is likely to very quickly fall to unhealthy habits and despite his belief that he is human, he will most likely be unaware of some basic human medical conditions. There are many ways to deal with trauma and he will likely try several of them before we are able to steer him correctly._

Harry cleared his throat slightly. "Excuse me, TARDIS, Timeship, erm, lady, but the last time I tried to do any sort of thing, he locked me in a cupboard." The TARDIS' chiming laugh rang out once again, mingling with Benton's deep baritone boom and Alistair's barely covered cough.

_And I cannot promise he will not try it again,"_ she replied on the monitor and all the humans felt her amusement still in the air. _But he will need you, HarrySullivanMD and not just as a medical doctor. Your calm and gentle persona will help recapture that part of him now lost in the haze of his pain._ The attractive Doctor paled slightly but nodded as well.

All four humans traipsed out of the MedBay in silence, each contemplating the task ahead of them. They stopped in the console room and turned once again to the main monitor.

"So is this everyone?" Alistair asked out loud.

_Not quite,_ the screen read. _There are two more to join you. Both come from his personal future and he will have to forget their involvement for a time once he has changed back but both care for him more than any who have come before and any who will come after._

"The girl?" Doris asked, quietly and the two newest members of their group turned to her quizzically.

_Yes,_ the TARDIS replied. _The one who has walked eternity for him will come soon but it is not her time yet. First must come the one who now lives in eternity. The one who cannot die._

With that, the console room door burst open and in swept an obscenely good-looking man with perfectly coifed dark hair, dancing blue eyes and a movie-star smile.

"Someone call for a man who can't die?" drawled an American voice from the doorway.

_DorisLethbridgeStewart, BridgadierGeneralAlistairLet hbridgeStewart, JohnBenton and HarrySullivanMD, let me introduce to you…JackHarkness._


	4. The Captain

**Jack's thoughts and questions to the TARDIS. The next chapter, which should be up shortly, will jump ahead to several weeks into Nine's human existence. **

* * *

All four humans turned to face the newcomer who was smiling broadly and, for lack a better term, sizing them up with the art of a professional. He sauntered over to the Console, fully aware that they were watching him, and caressed the coral. "Hello there, gorgeous. And who might all of these fine folks be?"

_JackHarkness, this is BridgadierGeneralAlastorLeth bridgeStewart,_ the screen read and the TARDIS spoke in his mind and a light from the console shown on the distinguished-looking older gentleman standing closest to the monitor. Jack gave him a short salute. _This is his **MATE**, DorisLethbridgeStewart,_ the TARDIS continued, shining the light on an attractive older woman with iron gray hair, leaning on the word 'mate' in Jack's mind with a heavy prod, leaving Harry and Benton to wonder why the word "mate" was bolded and in capital letters, although Alistair had no such wonders as Jack stepped forward and laid a deep kiss on the back of Doris' hand, winking at her cheekily.

_This is HarrySullivanMD,_ another light shone and a handshake, although it looked as if Jack was sorely tempted to kiss Harry's hand as well which made Harry shift uncomfortably and Benton snicker, _and this is JohnBenton,_ the TARDIS finished.

Just as John's name was fading from the screen, another message popped up. _And none of them have the slightest interest in engaging in sexual intercourse with you, _the screen chastised, making Harry sputter, John snort, Doris raise her eyebrows and Alistair scowl.

"Aww, you take all my fun away," Jack complained light-heartedly, swaggering over to stroke the console. If the TARDIS had eyes, she would have rolled them. As it was, a wave of affectionate exasperation washed over them.

_I need to speak with JackHarkness,_ the screen read next, _So if I may ask for the rest of you to retire to the house. I believe DorisLethbridgeStewart has been planning a lovely meal for you all for the past few moments. I'm sure she could use some assistance,_ the TARDIS finished. Alistair cast one last slightly mistrustful look over his shoulder at Jack and then followed the other three out the door.

Once they were gone, Jack dropped his charming mask and placed his hand on the console again. "What's wrong, old girl? Why am I here? Where is she? Unless you're responsible for this?" he asked, pulling a postcard from his greatcoat pocket. Written on it in a flowing girlish script he could have recognized anywhere in the universe was the date, time, and address of this manor. In the upper left corner was a stamp of a howling wolf.

_The Golden One? The one who will save us? She is not here,_ the TARDIS replied, sadly.

"Where is he then? Last time I saw him...he was in bad shape. He needs her," Jack said, softly, remembering manic mood swings and dead eyes. Jack had waited and waited for the Doctor to show up once again and when he finally had, investigating some unusual activity at the Cardiff rift where Jack had set up base, the Time Lord had been a distraught mess. "Is that why I'm here? Can we bring her back?"

The TARDIS saw in Jack's mind his memory of the slightly wild sad-eyed brown-haired man that would follow the one she had currently asleep in the MedBay and she allowed herself a moment of pity for him. But she was going to fix it. Her Thief would not suffer much longer. She would make sure of it.

_He is here,_ came the reply. _But it is not as simple as you might think,_ the TARDIS replied.

"It never is," Jack sighed.

_It is time that you lived out the past as it was meant to be for him,_ the TARDIS said, cryptically. She was old, much older than her Thief and Jack and she had seen what would come for them. She could see the past, the present and the future and, tangled as it was at the moment, the Timelines would eventually straighten and the future would stabilize. Only the best for her Thief and her Rose.

"What do you mean?" Jack asked cautiously.

_The Doctor here is not the one you most recently met. He is, as the Golden One calls him, your first Doctor,_ the TARDIS replied. Jack's breath caught in his chest. That meant that this TARDIS wasn't the one he knew either. It was an earlier version.

"What have you done?" he asked, stroking the console.

_I have done only what was necessary. You forget, JackHarkness, that I see everything that is, everything that was, everything that ever could be. I know what is and is not supposed to happen and what has and has not happened to him. And this has always been part of his past/future._

"But I can't meet him now! He didn't know me when we first met! Hell, he didn't even like me, then."

_That is because he saw you as a rival for the Golden One's affections,_ the TARDIS replied. _And because you almost wiped out the entire human population,_ she added as an afterthought.

"And we both know which of those was the biggest offense," Jack muttered.

_No need to be petty, JackHarkness, it does not become you. Once he is no longer human, he will forget this experience until a later date, until it is safe for him to remember you both and everything will work out as it should. I have seen to it._

"Hold on!" Jack said, as his brain attempted to short out. "What do you mean 'no longer human' and what do you mean 'both'? And who are all those other people?"

The TARDIS sighed and once again explained, for the third time, what had happened to the Doctor. Jack put his head in his hands. "I can't believe he tried…I mean, I know it was rough on him. I've been through wars, I've seen soldiers but…he never seemed that bad when I knew him," Jack finally answered.

_You met him after Her,_ the TARDIS replied. _She helped heal him in ways even he did not understand although if you have seen the future him without Her, you may have some idea of what he was like. She made him care and She made him try. She gave him a reason to live once again, a hand to hold and a heart to love. And I will not let him be without Her. She needs him and he needs Her. I need Her. I will have Her, _the TARDIS finished emphatically, the air around him growing agitated.

Jack was silent for a moment, considering everything the TARDIS had told him. A human Doctor, huh? Without the stiff Time Lord morals, maybe he'd have a chance to…

_He is not for you, JackHarkness,_ the TARDIS said forcefully, sending a slight electrical shock to the fingers that were resting on the console. _And neither is She._

"Ouch!" Jack said, stuffing his fingers in his mouth. "I was just kidding!"

_You were not,_ the TARDIS countered.

"Ok, ok, I wasn't. But I won't do anything. You haven't lived through it yet, but trust me, I knew from my first step onto this ship that neither of them were ever going to be mine, no matter how hard I tried," Jack said, sighing again. "I wasn't going to stand in the way of a love like that. Especially considering how hard they were trying to stand in their own way."

He tentatively laid his fingers back on the console once again. "So she's coming then? Rose is coming?" he asked, almost afraid for the TARDIS' answer, almost afraid to hope for his precious friend back.

Before she could reply, the main door opened once again and Doris came striding in, followed closely by Alistair who had insisted on accompanying her in the conman's presence, much to the amusement of Harry and Benton.

"Jack, was it?" she said, warmly. "Dinner is up."

"Sounds great," Jack said, turning his most winsome smile on her and then on Alistair. "Lead the way!" He followed the two humans out the door and once he was gone, the TARDIS gave a mental sigh. There was still so much to accomplish...and Her Thief was still shouting at her from his watch.

She chose to ignore him and stretched her consciousness out through Time and Space, searching and searching for the golden light that would signify Her Rose. She needed Her. His taut and teetering Timeline and thus the future existence of Time itself, depended on the Golden One.

_She will come,_ the TARDIS thought to no one in particular. _She has to come._


	5. The Mechanic

**Our first look at poor, tortured human Nine and Jack, Harry and Benton's attempts to help him. **

**The line "the Brig and Doris seemed to have basically adopted him" is a shout-out to the story "Never Quite Normal" by Jessa L'Rynn which is, by far, the best and most creative war-torn AU Nine/Rose I've read. It's incredible, seriously. Get over there and read it, if you haven't. Or even if you have. I reread it all the time.**

* * *

John Noble was not a nice man. This was a fact that he had decided himself and he was determined to stick to it. He was surly, he was grumpy and he drank too much. Despite his position as an alien equipment mechanic with UNIT (a position he heavily suspected the Brig had acquired for him), he was smarter than everyone else around him and he knew it. And he generally made sure they knew it, too.

He had few friends and the friends he had he didn't understand how he had acquired. Benton and Harry made a point to check in on him frequently, spending time with him despite his surliness, and the Brig and Doris seemed to have basically adopted him. The one time he had tried to ask about it, Alistair had grown deathly serious and had answered, "There are some things that, when lived through together, make it impossible to let go of each other," and then the matter was shut and sealed.

He rarely spoke to his co-workers outside of barked orders and incorrect names and they rarely spoke to him outside of squeaked apologies and muttered obscenities (generally at his expense), except for the annoyingly suave pretty boy who seemed to get assigned to work with him most often and who seemed determined to speak to him despite all of that.

A pretty boy who was chattering at him incessantly at the moment. "Seriously, though, you should have seen it! There I was, in the middle of this desert –"

"Completely naked," he interjected, drolly. All of...Jack. That was the boy's name. Jack. All of Jack's stories tended to go this way. If he was pushed (and pushed and pushed and pushed - perhaps off a radio dish...and wasn't that an odd thing to think?), John imight/i have begrudgingly admitted that Jack's presence wasn't totally abhorrent.

"Completely naked," Jack responded with a cheeky grin, "when suddenly this helicopter flew overhead…"

John sighed and turned to the alien engine he was currently in the process of rebuilding, letting Jack's chatter wash around him. It was refreshingly simple, this engine. He liked working with his hands this time around.

This time? He shook his head slightly. Every now and then, small, strange pieces of thought like that drifted into his consciousness. Thoughts of two hearts, of blue boxes, of disembodied voices. Whenever those thoughts drifted in, he did his best to ignore them. Or drink them away. No sense in going any more mad than he already was.

Looking down at the engine in front of him, he sighed again. Mechanics. Turn the bolt, connect the wires, fix the connection, it all made sense. It was all so simple.

And it kept his mind off other things, things like the mechanics of everyday life. He walked through his life in a haze. Work, go home and drink, pass out and then drag his arse out of bed the next morning to work again, unless it was Saturday or Sunday and then he could drink all day. Except when Harry or Benton or one of the Lethbridge-Stewarts drug him from his flat and made him ido/i something.

The last few years of his life were fuzzy, blurred and painful. According to Dr. Sullivan, who he had a strange compulsion to lock into cupboards and only called Dr. Sullivan when he wanted to annoy the proper Englishman, he was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. What he remembered came in agonizing snippets during the day and in the raging torrent of his nightmares when he slept. In the rare instances when his sleep wasn't plagued by the nightmares, strange dreams about a mysterious Time traveller who wore different faces fought their way to the forefront of his subconscious and somehow those dreams seemed just as painful as the nightmares themselves.

And so, he rarely slept, since drinking himself into a stupor and passing out in his flat wherever he landed, didn't count as sleeping. According to Benton, at least.

A booted foot nudged his leg, kicking him out of his ponderings and he turned to see Jack looking at him expectantly.

"Erm…what?" he asked, cautiously. It was never good to just agree with Jack, especially when you didn't know the question.

Jack fought the urge to roll his eyes. The Doctor, or "John" as he struggled to remember to call him, obviously hadn't been listening at all. That really was fairly typical of life with the Doctor, except in the past the Doctor generally hadn't been listening to Jack because he was too busy listening to Rose. Or staring at Rose. Or, if Rose happened to not be in the room at the time, pining after Rose.

iWhere is she?/i Jack frustratingly wondered. The TARDIS had assured him she would be here, but when? They needed her. He wasn't sure exactly what sort of progress he'd expected to see over the past few months of this bizarre new life of flats and UNIT and bloody John Noble, but he was fairly certain that an angry, emotionally crippled, PTSD'd human drunk hadn't exactly been what the TARDIS had in mind.

Every now and then, Jack saw snatches of the future Doctor, the one who, attached to his little blonde saviour, had given Jack a second chance and taught him to be a better man. But those fantastic moments of breath-snatching brilliance were few and far between. Not once had he or Benton or Harry been able to put the wide, manic smile of glee Jack remembered so clearly on John Noble's severe face. Apparently something else, something more, was needed to trigger that kind of joy. And Jack had a sneaking suspicion that the trigger was a teasing, tongue-touched smile of adoration from someone a lot more pink and yellow than him.

Occasionally, Doris managed to put the small, sweet smile the Doctor would give Rose when she'd done something particularly endearing on his face but the kind, older woman seemed to be the only one who could even come close to piercing his thick leather armor.

"I said, Benton and I are going out to the bar tonight, would you like to come?" Jack repeated, patiently.

The Doctor, no, John, Jack reminded himself, frowned and turned back to the engine he was rebuilding. "No thanks," he said, stiffly. His drinking was best done alone in the darkness of his flat where there weren't other people to see, weren't other people to hurt and weren't other people to bother him.

"John," Jack began, narrowing his eyes slightly. "You're just going to drink yourself into oblivion anyway…why not do it with some friends? Who knows…you might even find a lady to do it with!" he teased, waggling his eyebrows at the hunched, leather-clad shoulders. Jack wanted to snort to himself at the picture. John Noble insisted on wearing his leather jacket over the top of his UNIT-issued mechanics scrubs. It felt slightly like a betrayal to Rose to even mention such a dalliance, but Jack knew the Doctor was going to decline anyway and flirting was his default setting.

"A lady," John snorted. "Or a gentleman?" he snapped caustically, striking out to hurt Jack, trying to get him to back off, banging his spanner on the side the ship loudly. He honestly didn't care what the man did in his free time but he wanted him to stop reaching out to him. Couldn't the man just leave him alone?

"Yeah, sure!" Jack replied with a sideways grin. He knew why John had said that and, even if his preferences were a little, apparently, surprising in this time, Jack was still Jack. Plus, the Time Agent had flounced his way through a lot more puritanical times than 20th century England. "Whatever floats your boat! Gotta tell you though, if I'm on your dance card, you've got to buy me a drink first."

John raised his head and, for a brief second, Jack cackled with triumph inside as a small light of amusement drifted through those fathomless blue eyes. But just as soon it appeared, it was chased away by a hard, distant expression. "I'm better off on me own," he said eventually, turning abruptly from Jack to storm away.

He'd actually considered the pretty boy's offer to go with Benton to the bar. It might be nice, to connect with some other people for once, to have a night out and it might tire him out enough that he wouldn't have nightmares tonight. But no, he couldn't risk it. No one deserved having to spend time with him. No one deserved to be shrouded in his darkness.

Jack stared after the grim man's retreating form desolately. iWhat am I supposed to do?/i he wondered. iHow do I help him when he doesn't want to help himself?/i

"Just give him time," Harry said softly, coming up to stand beside Jack. He and Benton had come to like the suave playboy in the past few trying months, finding him to be funny, brave and true. The Doctor always did choose his companions well. Although, to hear him tell the story, it sounded more like this mysterious "Rose" woman had chosen Jack more than the Doctor had.

Jack, however, did seem to take utter delight in make Harry uncomfortable, honestly not a very difficult but very satisfying task. Jack took a little too much glee in saying outrageous things to Harry, trying to make the proper Englishman blush and usually resulting in making Benton spit his beer on the table in laughter.

"D'you think so?" Jack asked. "Because it seems to me like time's all we're giving him right now."

The two of them watched across the room as the Doctor strode purposefully out of the back room, slamming the door behind him. Harry sighed heavily and turned to Jack. "I believe there were drinks mentioned?" he asked. He could use a night off from worrying about a centuries-old, manic-despressive wreck of a not-quite-alien-at-the-moment alien.

"You offering?" Jack teased, watching as Harry's ears turned pink.

"Awww! Don't start making Harry blush yet!" Benton called, striding into the large hangar from another part of the building. "I just got here!"

"You two are impossible," Harry muttered, patting his hair self-consciously and leaving the room in a rush. Benton and Jack followed him out, all three of them laughing loudly but inside, all of their thoughts still lingered on the broken Time Lord they couldn't figure out how to fix.

-

John stopped in at the liquor store around the corner from his flat. He bought he usual, obscene amount of booze and was halfway through the first bottle before he made it upstairs to his flat. That bottle was finished by the time his drunken mind decided it really was very improper to drink straight out of the bottle.

In the darkness of his apartment, his shaking hands reached out for a mug and accidentally knocked it to the ground. The bang and shatter of the glass surprised him and then suddenly he was on the ground, too. He curled in on himself, whimpering and trying to keep the memories at bay but they overwhelmed him just the same.

Fires blazed. Everything burns.

Battles raged. Everything hurts.

People screamed. Everything dies.

Everything.

Everything except him.

Why?

Why did it have to be him?


	6. The Arrival

The TARDIS was beginning to worry. Her plan was not working as She had hoped. The human version of the Doctor was not opening up to any of his former (or future) companions, choosing instead to fill his newly inferior body with poisonous toxins on a daily basis. Human as he was, Her connection to him mentally was limited at the moment, but when She connected with him in his dreams, they were always of fire and death much like the ones that plagued his Time Lord consciousness currently in the watch on the Lethbridge-Stewart's mantle.

When he was nearby, mostly at the weekly Sunday meals that Doris insisted he attend, She would scan him and find that his physical condition had worsened. If this continued, they were going to have to take drastic measures or he would destroy that feeble human body as he had tried to destroy his Time Lord one.

She could feel the worry and the sorrow coming from the human reinforcements currently standing around Her console talking softly about the Doctor. They met on a weekly basis as well, just before John showed up for dinner, to discuss their progress (or lack thereof).

"I don't know what to do," Jack said, finally. "He just pushes me away. Every now and then I think I see the Doctor in there but then he covers it up and snaps at me and it's gone."

The TARDIS felt especially bad for JackHarkness. The Captain had waited so long for the Doctor to reappear and now that he had (in a way), he was pushing Jack away even worse than he did (would) later.

"Where is this girl you mentioned?" Alistair asked the TARDIS, looking up at the Time Rotor. "You thought she could help?"

_I have not yet been able to locate her,_ the TARDIS answered sadly. The walls between universes were not yet completely closed (for Her, anyway) but without the other Time Lords and Gallifrey, travel between them would be very tricky. However, the Golden One appeared sporadically, mystifyingly. Every now and then, She would catch glimpses of the girl, as if she was throwing herself across the Void to different dimensions, but so far She hadn't been able to pull her here.

"What do you mean 'haven't been able to locate her'?" Jack asked. "Where is she?" He'd asked this question before but the TARDIS had always been evasive about answering. When he'd run into the future Doctor, the sad-eyed pinstriped one, in Cardiff, the Time Lord either couldn't or wouldn't tell him what had happened to Rose so Jack had assumed all these years that she was dead. The grief of thinking of his dear Rosie as dead had been greater than all the other hardships he'd experienced in this damned long life.

The humans felt a heaviness in the air, as if the TARDIS had just sighed. Perhaps it was time to tell them. _She has been trapped in a parallel dimension, JackHarkness._

There was a unison, "What?" all around.

"A parallel universe? That's impossible!" scoffed Benton.

_In theory, there are an infinite amount of parallel dimensions that exist in the whole of Time and Space, each differing from this prime universe in some key and some nonkey elements. In the future (your past, JackHarkness), the Golden One will be/has been separated from him and trapped in a parallel world. She has been trying to get back to him but has not been successful so far. Walking between universes does not appear to faze the Golden One. However, the abundance of parallel worlds is partly what is making locating her so difficult._

"Because you have to make sure you get the right Rose Tyler?" Jack asked. An infinite number of universes all holding copies of the people he held most dear. Hell, copies of himself. That would be exciting.

_No,_ the TARDIS answered firmly. _There are no others like the Golden One. In fact, that is one of the only constants among each dimension. There is only one RoseTyler. Just like there is only one Doctor._

Alistair and Doris exchanged a look on that. Leave it to the Doctor to find the one girl in all of time and space that only ever existed once. But then it would take a girl like that to capture his affection.

_It is her association with the Doctor that was/will be/has been what makes her unique. In the end, even I am unsure whether the first time they met he found her or she found him. He needs her and she needs him. Perhaps they simply were made for one another. The universe is a strange and wonderful place, _(and terrible) added the TARDIS internally. But that's why it need the Doctor and the Golden One. To keep the terror at bay.

"I don't understand. Why are you having trouble finding her if she's the only one in existence?" Benton asked.

_She is a wanderer as he is...and never stays in place for very long. Travel between universes would be very difficult now without the other Time Lords and the Eye of Harmony and in his future time, the time when he lost her, all the cracks had been closed. He will try everything short of ripping the universe apart to get her back but in the end, has deemed it impossible. However, I believe she has found some way to cross dimensions, searching for him. The Golden One has never believed anything impossible. I glimpse her sometimes, between the universes in the Void. I have not yet been able to catch her._

"Keep looking," Alistair said with a heavy sigh. "I am afraid we've reached a dead end with him so far. I'm worried, TARDIS."

_As am I,_ She replied. _He needs -_ She began, stopping suddenly as the very person he needed more than universe itself, threw herself across the Void.

-

All five humans in the console room felt the air shift as the TARDIS suddenly focused on something far beyond their comprehension. The atmosphere grew heavy and the could each feel her straining, reaching, grasping for SOMETHING. As the energy in the room reached a fever-pitch, everything erupted into a shower of gold, making them throw their hands up to cover their eyes. The overwhelming golden light started to fade and coalesce at the center of the room, just near the console and they opened their eyes to see it diminishing into a small, shining spot just by the console. The palpable shimmer pulsed and twitched and glowed and slowly took itself form, a figure, lying on the grating.

"What is that?" Benton breathed, the first one to find his voice, looking unsteadily at the pulsating gold mass.

_That_, the TARDIS began, as the light faded back and seemed to seep into the floor, through the grating, absorbed back into the Heart. If the Time Machine could have facial expressions, she would be utterly beaming at the moment. The Golden One was here. Her Heart sang with love and hope. _**That**__ is the Doctor's Mate. RoseTyler._

-

They all watched, speechless, as the light receded and was replaced with a very human figure, lying on her back on the harsh grating. She wore dark pants and a blue leather jacket and looked distinctly uncomfortable on the grating like that. Jack took a shaky step forward, toward his long-lost friend when she suddenly shocked them all, sitting up stock straight and gasping for air.

"Blimey! Well, that was different. Never had a jump feel like that before. Everything still in place?" she murmured to herself, oblivious to the five gaping humans around her. "Legs, arms, fingers...hair," she continued, running a hand through her long, blonde locks. "Still got hair. Really big hair. No sideburns though," she snickered to herself for some reason in a strange accent. "Right, then. Let's see what we've got today - oh," she stopped as she first seemed to realize where she was.

Standing up slowly with her back to the other five occupants, who were all holding their breath and watching her, Rose ran her hands along the console in the caress of a long-lost lover. "Oh, girl. Is it really you? Am I really here? Finally here?" They heard the tremble in her voice and Doris wondered just how long the girl had been searching for her voice to sound so desperately hopeful now. She was entirely enraptured in the feel of the TARDIS all around her, caressing her, whispering gently to her in her mind, the song she had missed so dearly all this time enveloping her with love. She was here. "Oh, you did it, girl. You brought me here. Thank you," she breathed. "Thank you so much."

She was home.

Slowly, Rose came out of her connection with the TARDIS, sensing that she wasn't alone. Turning on her heel, Rose looked over the unfamiliar faces watching her, lingering on a kindly looking older woman who had a few tears glinting in her eyes and the stiff, formal man with a grand mustache who grasped her hand. Her eyes swept along to the next man beside him, a tall, lanky man with a youthful face and then a small, neat man in an impeccable suit before settling on the last face, one who was watching her with wide, vulnerable eyes caught somewhere between hopeful desperation and fierce love. A face she had never expected to see again and not because she had been trapped in a parallel world. She'd met other Jacks along the way but none of them had been hers.

All of them had flirted mercilessly with her, but none of them had been hers.

"Jack?" she asked quietly, taking a hesitant step toward him. Oh, please let this be real, she thought, her expression probably mirroring his own. "My Jack?"

In answer to her question, he swept forward and gathered her to him in a bone-crushing hug. The two of them stayed that way, fiercely holding onto one another for an undefinable amount of time, unable to let go lest either of them wake up and find themselves alone. Finally, Jack broke away, stepping back to look at her with tears in his eyes.

"You...you look good, Rosie," he said, sniffing as she did the same, wiping some of the tears from his face and then reaching out to do the same for her. And it was true, she did look good. Really good. Impossibly good. It was as if someone had taken the beautiful young Rose Tyler he had known, bleached blonde hair and too-large mouth and enhanced all of her features, making her the most beautiful possible version of herself. It had been years since he'd seen her but he thought he'd burned her image in his memory deep enough that he could catalogue every change. She was slightly taller than her remembered, her hair was longer and bore no dark colored roots. Her figure was more lithe, strong but supple limbs all working together to create an ethereal picture of impossible grace. Her cheekbones were higher and her mouth, still wide and full, was more subtle in its expression but it was her eyes that surprised him most. They shone at him a bright gold-tinted hazel, still sparkling with the light that was ever-present in Rose but they now held an ancient age and a heavy weight he had only seen shining out of one other pair of eyes in his long, long life.

"Thanks," she said, smiling at gently at him before the expression was replaced with a slightly mad smile he thought he recognized again from another face that wasn't hers. "Tried for ginger again the last time, but I usually come out blonde. Awfully fond of the classics. Didn't have much control over that first one. Ginger," she snorted. "Entirely his fault. I think it turned out pretty well, this time though! Bit elvish, if I do say so myself. Shouldn't have been reading so much Tolkien, I suppose. Anyway, who's this lot?" she asked, babbling in a way that also reminded Jack of someone else, as she turned to face the other humans.

"Brigadier General Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart. And this is my wife, Doris," the Brig said, stepping forward and extending his hand to Rose. "I have known the Doctor across several regenerations."

"I'm sorry," Rose said, sticking her tongue in her teeth and grinning at him before shaking his hand and then Doris'. "It wasn't the one with the horrible coat was it?"

"Which one?" quipped Benton. Rose turned her beaming smile on him. "John Benton, ma'am. It's a pleasure to meet you."

"Pleasure's all mine, I'm sure," Rose answered, shaking his hand as well. "And you are?" she asked, turning her full attention to Harry and hiding her grin when he blushed ever so slightly.

"Harry Sullivan," he mumbled.

"The Doctor locked him in a cupboard once," piped up Benton. Harry shot him a venomous look.

"Did he?" Rose laughed. "I'm sure you didn't deserve it," she said, comfortingly, patting Harry on the shoulder and suppressing another laugh as he blushed further.

"Now...where is the man of the hour?" Rose said, looking around her hopefully. She thought she'd done well, meeting the strange assortment of companions in the console room before finally asking the desperate question she wanted answered most in the entire universe. She's been searching for so long.

Her hopeful face fell as all five humans looked away and the TARDIS chimed sadly in her mind. Stepping forward to lay a hand on Rose's now hunched shoulders, Doris finally answered, "That, I'm afraid, is a very complicated question, my dear."


	7. The Diplomat

**And so they meet! YAY! It's a bit short but I was so excited to get it up, I figured I would go ahead and split the chapter. The next bit will be a little set-up of the crew and Rose setting up her employment and plan for dealing with the Doctor and what I hope will be a super fun time out a pub with Rose, Jack, Benton, Harry and a begrudgingly fascinated John. =)**

* * *

_Monday Afternoon_

John looked sideways from his position underneath the Chula transporter he was currently supposed to be restoring. All around him people of all types, but bureaucrats mostly, men who didn't usually set foot into the Maintenance hangars, were skittering around the floor, straightening up piles of tools and nervously chattering with one another. This had been happening all morning and, while it had served as amusement for him at the beginning, now it was just getting irritating.

"All righ', then. What's going on today that's got the monkey suits with their knickers in a twist?" he grunted, scooting out from under the ship and standing to question Jack, who was fiddling with the port-side thruster.

Jack hid a small secret smile before answering, "I heard there was someone new coming in today. Some sort of diplomat or translator or something. Apparently the higher ups are desperate to impress her."

"Her?" John asked, wiping his hands on his overalls, careful to avoid the jacket, and snorting with amusement as a man in a full military dress uniform leaned against a very oily post.

"Yep," Jack said, grinning over at him. "And, if the rumors are true, she's supposed to really be something else," he suggestively quipped, amused at his own joke. Rose really was something else. In more ways than one. But John didn't need to know that yet.

"If she's so damn important and they want to impress her so much, why're they bringing her in here, of all places?" John asked, looking around him. It may be a spacious hangar with an impressive amount of alien tech in it, but it was, for all intents and purposes, still just a mechanical repair shop. What sort of devastatingly impressive woman wanted to see a repair garage? In fact, what woman ever wanted to see a repair garage?

"They're showing her everything, I guess. She wanted to see our facilities. And meet the employees," Jack said with a shrug, turning back to the thruster.

"Oh," John said. "Come to gawk at the lowly mechanics, eh?" There was a sudden flurry of activity near the far door into the hangar and he surreptitiously walked around to the starboard side thruster where he could watch the bureaucrats skitter around without actually looking like he was interested.

Jack again hid his grin as he watched John's curiosity get the better of him, craning his neck to see Rose when she walked in. And walk in she did.

Jack couldn't help but catch his breath and he also couldn't help but listen for the almost well-concealed similar intake of air from the other side of the ship when the new and updated even more gorgeous than before version of his best friend walked through the door.

Rose's long, smooth blonde hair was tied back from her face in a simple but devastating updo and she wore a tasteful light gray business suit with a flash of pink blouse underneath. The skirt of her suit stopped at knee length, showing off her gorgeous expanse of toned calves, accented by her sensible but eye catching pumps. She'd only lightly applied make-up but it was all she needed, just an accent here and there as her wide mouth was spread into an earth-shattering smile she graced on every nervous man and woman she met. Rose breezed about the room with a friendly, confident air, charming everyone she came in contact with, chatting easily with everyone from stuffy high-ranking officials to mechanics who hastily wiped greasy hands on overalls to shake her delicate white one.

Jack's heart nearly burst with pride. UNIT really had been beside themselves to impress Rose. Stories (both true and tall tales) of the Doctor and the Time Lords were well-circulated among the UNIT gossip corridors and, with the Doctor absent for so long now (only five people knew he was actually currently standing in their Mechanics Hangar fiddling with a Chula anti-grav wrench and pretending not to watch as the gorgeous new diplomat charm her way through the building) and now...to be meeting another Time Lord (Lady, really) who was basically the Doctor's wife? Well, they could just say that Rose was doing a damn good job of impressing right back.

Of course, only a select number of red-tape type people knew who and what Rose was. To everyone else, she was the newest member of UNIT's Diplomatic Treatise Team, with a special emphasis in Translating and Negotiation.

And if her medical records were sealed, she had an odd affinity for bananas and happened to be staying in the Lethbridge-Stewarts' spare bedroom, whose business was that, anyway?

John looked over to see Jack staring at the woman with undiluted attraction and longing and, unless he was reading the boy wrong, admiration. Well, fine. Let the pretty boy be impressed. He wasn't impressed. So what if she seemed to light up the area she stood in without making any discernible effort? So what if she seemed to draw forward genuine smiles and effortless ease from roughened mechanics he'd seen be even more grumpy than himself. So what if those gorgeous legs of hers seemed to go on and on and on? Anyway, he had no interest in meeting some stuffed shirt corporate Barbie who would no doubt shake a manicured finger at his grease-covered, darkened fingernails. Shoving himself back down to the wheeled board he'd been laying on underneath the ship, he scooted back under the transporter, trying to fit in stubborn piece he'd been attempting to install all morning.

She was just one station away from theirs now, he did have a rather splendid view of her well-toned calves. (And, wow. Those calves. She must run. A lot, he thought absently before ruthlessly cutting down that thought.) He could hear her speaking in flawless Spanish with Miguel, who was delighted to have another person to speak with in his native language besides the surly leather jacketed man who usually only used his wide vocabulary of Spanish to curse at him in creative ways.

"She speaks Spanish!" he heard Jack's muffled voice from above comment.

"Well, she is supposed to be a translator," John replied, the sarcasm dripping from his voice. "Besides, it's just Spanish," he scoffed. "Not like it's something difficult like Mandarin." John had a number of degrees from all over, including one in linguistics from Oxford, from his days of travelling before he became a soldier. Like he was going to be impressed by some over-dressed woman chattering in the fourth-most spoken language in the world.

Jack's booted foot came out and connected with his shin and he muffled his complaint as he realized that the calves and their owner had stopped just beside his outstretched legs.

"Well, hello there," Jack said in his smoothest, silkiest voice. John rolled his eyes at the underside of the ship. "Jack Harkness. It is truly a pleasure. Ma'am," he said, drawing out the last syllable and exaggerating his American accent momentarily.

Underneath the ship, John dropped his spanner with a loud clang to the floor and cursed. Honestly, did Jack really think that American accent worked on women? Anyway, like Harkness could bag a woman like that.

Well, it wasn't like his Manchester brogue was going to do him any better.

Hang on a tic. When did he care about anything working on a woman?

Above him, Jack smirked at Rose across the Doctor's prone form. "The pleasure's all mine, I'm sure," she said back to him, letting the smallest amount of purr insinuate itself in her professional tone. "And who do we have here?" she asked, nudging the Doc Marten nearest to her with the pointed toe of her shoe.

"Oh, he's not important," Jack answered with a wink. "Just a grumpy old sod who wouldn't know his way around a Chula transporter if landed in the middle of the London Blitz." Rose had to hold back her choke of laughter.

"Oi! I'll have you know, Harkness, I've rebuilt practically this entire engine while you've been puttering around for the past week deciding the best approach to shag your way through the entire secretary pool," John snapped, pushing himself out from under the ship to glare at Jack. Jack coughed slightly and nodded over to Rose, who was looking down at him with a raised eyebrow. He shifted slightly, looking a bit embarrassed but defiantly did not apologize for his language. Instead, he merely scowled up at her and absolutely did NOT contemplate that a few more centimeters to the left and he could probably look up her skirt.

Rude.

"Oh, right. Excuse me," Jack retorted, rolling his eyes. "He thinks he's so impressive," he said in a mock-confidential tone to Rose, leaning in close to her over top of John's legs.

"I am so impressive," John snapped, shifting slightly so the pointed end of the object he was holding poked Jack in the shins, making him hop back.

The woman surprised him suddenly when she crouched down to peer closely at him. "Rose Tyler," she said, smiling at him in a way that made him feel as if he were the only man in existence, in a way that made him want her to smile at him like that every moment of every day if he would feel like this in return. He felt warm and interesting and, for the first time in a long time, maybe, just maybe like he was worth something. He shook his head slightly. What the hell was wrong with him?

"John Noble," he grunted and then used his feet to begin to push himself back under the ship and away from her beautiful hazel eyes and tempting legs as she stood up. The slight press of a heeled shoe on his shin made him stop. "Yes?" he said in an irritated voice.

She crouched back down beside him a moment, holding his ice blue eyes with her own. Leaning in a bit closer to him, her hand reached out to touch the object in his hands, her fingers just barely brushing his own. "It was nice to meet you, John Noble," she said softly and the raw honesty in her voice made like she felt as though it had been genuinely nice although he knew there was no way it had been. She held his eye contact steadily and he felt himself itching to reach for the flask in his jacket pocket to calm his suddenly jangling nerves. When her grip did not relinquish, he raised an impatient eyebrow at her while at the same time reveling in the fact that her attention was, in fact, still on him and not on bloody Jack Harkness.

"And that transdynamic equalizer will install much easier if you turn it the right way 'round," she whispered to him.

In flawless Mandarin.

And then she was gone, breezing away in a flurry of clicking heels and gorgeous legs and he most certainly did _not _scoot out from under the transporter to gape at her as she swept away.

Except, well, maybe he did.


	8. The Set-Up

_The previous day_

Rose led the humans back through the TARDIS, further than most of them had been before. She seemed to know exactly where she wanted to go and the TARDIS was being very accommodating. Soon they found themselves in a cozy kitchen Jack recognized from his time on board the ship and, sure enough, as Rose began automatically preparing tea for everyone, his favorite navy mug (RAF logo and all) appeared on the sideboard.

As they drank their tea, Doris and Alistair (and the TARDIS with occasional chimes that only Rose could translate) described the situation to Rose, who listened in silence. Her calm exterior never wavered as they told about finding him in the Medbay, of the TARDIS' instruction and of the arrival of Benton, Harry and Jack. She did look surprised when Jack told her about the Bad Wolf connection to his postcard and the other four seemed very interested in what Bad Wolf might be, but Rose waved her hand and declared it a story for another time.

When they had finished, throats dry from talking, Doris and Alistair sat back and Rose finally spoke once again. "I should have known that getting back to him would be complicated. Well, more complicated," she added grimly. "What's my life been but centuries of complications?" she muttered, more to herself than to any of them. Since the Lethbridge-Stewarts, Harry and Benton all assumed she was alien, it was only Jack who started in surprise at 'centuries'. Oh, his poor Rosie. How long had it been?

Rose looked up to see Jack surveying her with concern and pity. Oh, she'd said that bit aloud. She wasn't all that used to having people around her anymore and it was a bad habit to talk aloud to herself these days. "So...what shall we do then? Ideas?" she asked, brightly, ignoring Jack's look.

There was silence around for a moment. They'd all been expecting Rose to have some sort of brilliant Doctorish scheme. "We, ah, thought you might have an idea?" Harry hazarded eventually. "We've been watching him for months now and haven't gotten anywhere."

"Bit of a dead end," Benton agreed.

"He's shutting us all out, Rose," Jack added. "He's not much like even the Doctor I knew back when we travelled together. He's darker and much more gruff. And he has these unpredictable mood swings. I mean, he did then too, but nothing like this."

"He did," Rose said softly. "When I first met him...he was really rough around the edges. We'd been together for almost half a year before we met you and he'd started to change even in that small amount of time. He thought he didn't deserve to live, didn't deserve to be happy. It took a little boxing around the ears for me to get him to realize that life was worth living again. And now, so soon after the War...I'm sure he's in bad shape," she finished, sadly. She'd been expecting to find him shortly after she'd lost him and the two of them to be able to work through the pain of their separation together but instead she'd been given this earlier, broken him to mend. Her own sorrow would have to wait a bit.

Plus, it was still him. And it was her first Doctor...the one she'd fallen for, hard, as a silly nineteen year old with designs on forever but no idea what it meant. But here they were, together again, or nearly and she had to help him become the man that would grab her hand in the department store. Help him be ready to open his hearts, help him to heal enough to reach out to the little human who would need him then. She could feel the ebb and pull of Time here, could feel how much rested on this point in Time. This was the past for her and she had to ensure now that they would have a future. And, of course, that the rest of the universe had a future because if this failed, if this crumbled...well, it wasn't going to be pretty. The universe needed the Doctor.

She sighed heavily and pushed her mug away. Wouldn't it be nice to not risk the end of the world for a day?

Nice, perhaps. But boring.

Who wanted boring?

"Well, I suppose first of all I need to find a job, someplace to stay and a way to introduce myself to him," she said in business-mode now. She sat up straighter and tossed her shimmering blonde hair over her shoulder, turning to face the Brig. Alistair was surprised at the abrupt change in demeanor, but matched her attitude and posture.

"I'm sure we can work something out with UNIT for employment," he said, eyeing her across the table. "With your expertise and association with the Doctor, I'm sure you'll be invaluable. It will also put you and the Doctor working in the same building, so you can run into him and keep an eye on him. What sort of employment would fit your experience?" he asked, gesturing to Harry, who scrambled to pull out a notepad to write on.

Rose's business-like facade fell away for a moment, as she bit her lip and looked down at the table, a strange gesture of nervousness looking out of place from the mysterious, powerful alien-ness of her. "Well, before I met the Doctor I worked in a shop," she ventured, uncertainly.

The Brigadier had to work very hard to keep his expression schooled and impassive. All of Time and Space and the Doctor had chosen a simple shop girl? This might be trickier than he thought. "Ah," he said, clearing his throat slightly to cover his surprise and missing Rose's wink over at Doris. "Well, I'm sure we can manage -"

"I also have human doctorate degrees in temporal physics, astrology and mathematics, among other things, speak every language in the universe - thanks, old girl - and considerable years of diplomatic experience from travelling the universe," she said, grinning a tongue-touched smile at them and revelling in the shocked look on the General's face. Doris laughed with her and Jack guffawed. "Oh! And a Masters degree in Canadian Studies from the University of British Columbia. What?" she asked at Jack's raised eyebrow and Benton's double-take. "I was bored."

"Well," Alistair said, his eyes gleaming at her and shaking his head slightly. She'd gotten him. "That should make things easier, then."

"I was, though," Rose said suddenly, her keen eyes locking with his and he suddenly felt the ancient wisdom that the Doctor so often conveyed in that heavy glance. "When he first found me. That's all I was. A shop girl. No A-levels. Nothing but a dead-end job at at department store and too much eye make-up. He made me better, made me see that I could be more than that. That's what he does."

"I know," the General replied. "He made me into a better man."

"Me too," echoed Benton, followed by Harry and Jack.

"Well then, boys, TARDIS, Mrs. Lethbridge-Stewart," Rose said, standing to nod at each of them. "Let's figure out how to knock the Doc Martens off John Noble."

-

_Back at UNIT, later Monday evening_

John had been sulking under the Chula transporter all day, determinedly not thinking about Rose Tyler. Especially not about how she had been entirely correct about the transdynamic equalizer that he had, in fact, apparently been trying to install upside down. It had been a lucky guess, that's all. He was also not thinking about how she had looked at him with such kindness and interest. Beautiful women with gorgeous legs and impressive intellects didn't know things about parts. And didn't find anything interesting about mechanics. Or their parts. Especially big-eared old drunks.

"Time to clock out, John," Jack's voice came from somewhere above him. He grunted in response before unfolding himself from beneath the transporter and standing up to crack his back. He also pretended not to notice the way Jack's eyes appreciatively traced down his lean frame as he popped some joints and rolled his neck. iNot in a million years, fly boy/i, he thought rolling his eyes.

"Don't suppose you'd want to join us at the pub tonight?" Jack ventured, carefully, as he trotted behind John to the locker room where the two of them stored their mechanics coveralls.

"Do I ever?" John replied, toeing off his boots so he could remove the overalls and display his black jeans and black jumper combination.

"Well, no, but tonight we've got a new friend," Jack said, grinning over at him, doffing his own coveralls and walking to the sinks to rinse off some of the mechanical grease that had imbedded itself in his skin.

"A new conquest, you mean," John replied, throwing the dirty clothes into the laundry bin and coming up beside Jack to scrub at his hands. "I am not coming along with you to the pub just so I can stand by and watch you try to seduce some new bird."

Jack laughed to himself a moment. If the Doctor, his Doctor only knew what he was saying right now... "Not yet, but I wouldn't say no if she offered," he replied, waggling his eyebrows at the surly man already pulling his leather jacket back on. "The new diplomat's coming out with us tonight." Jack watched very carefully as John paused a moment before shoving his arm the rest of the way into his sleeve.

"Fell for you already, did she?" John said, kicking his locker shut with a bit more force than was perhaps necessary. Apparently that damned American accent had worked after all. Oh well, what did he care?

"Actually, Benton invited her. She's staying with Alistair and Doris and doesn't know many people around here yet. I guess they met at dinner on Sunday. I dunno, I was out of town. Benton says they missed you, though," Jack replied, casually, watching John's face again as he sat down to tie his boots back up. They'd had everything set to introduce Rose to John at dinner on Sunday when he hadn't shown up. Harry and Jack had been sent to investigate and found John passed out in the middle of his flat, several empty bottles of various alcohols spread around the floor. Jack had just been glad they'd managed to convince Rose to stay at the Lethbridge-Stewarts. He would have hated for her to see the Doctor like that. Although, unless he was very much mistaken, it was probably going to be unavoidable at some point in the next few months.

Once Harry had ensured that John would be fine and the two of them had moved his unconscious form to bed, he and Jack had driven back out to the Brig's and the team had put together Plan B. Which, if Jack could pull off this invitation, had been going swimmingly so far. John was obviously entranced by Rose even if he was trying to hide it right now.

"She knows Alistair and Doris?" John asked, surprised. And he could have met her yesterday? A large part of his hearts (heart - why did he always want to make that plural) fell at that small realization. Why did he have to be such a drunken idiot?

"Guess so," Jack shrugged. "An old mutual friend, I think Benton said," he replied. "So, what d'you think? A few drinks with us tonight? Meet the new girl? See if she lives up to all the hype?"

"Hmmpf," John grunted, finishing up his laces. Maybe an evening out wouldn't be so bad...they were going to a pub, after all. Not like they didn't have alcohol at pubs. And then he could meet this new woman, inevitably find her glaring faults and go back to his normal dredge of a life and forget that she existed.

Jack could see John wavering a bit. He just needed on little extra push. Jack grinned to himself. Well, he knew what that extra push had been back when he'd first started travelling with the pair. "A few drinks, a little conversation. And who knows? Maybe if I get lucky, she'll even dance with me," he said, leaning on the word ever so slightly.

"Fine," John snapped, standing up and breezing out the door in front of Jack. "A few drinks. But when she turns out to be a boring stuffed shirt bureaucrat, I'm leaving."

Jack snorted to himself. Hands off the blonde indeed. "Oh I don't think that was stuffing in her shirt, John," he called after the other man, grinning to himself. Time for phase two.


	9. The Pub

Next chapter will be Rose reminiscing about her time with Nine and then it's flashback time to tie in with Jack's little comment about what it had taken the last time to get our favorite brooding alien to get a move on with Rose! (I can't wait! Jealous/possessive Nine is my FAVORITE!)

1. The Back Garden 2. The Change 3. The Reinforcements 4. The Captain 5. The Mechanic 6. The Arrival 7. The Diplomat 8. The Set-Up

When Jack and John arrived at the small, quaint pub favored by the more reserved and slightly older members of UNIT (the music wasn't too loud, the drinks weren't too strangely named and there was always a match on the telly), Harry was already sitting at a table nursing his bitter. Benton and Rose were nowhere to be seen yet, but Jack trusted that they would show. Rose was (understandably) anxious to be around the Doctor and, if the way his eyes searched the bar and his expression fell as he didn't spot her, the Doctor was anxious to see her, too.

"Looks like your girlfriend stood you up," John said gruffly, slouching over to the bar to order a large whiskey.

Jack laughed. "She's not my girlfriend. Yet, anyway," he added, waggling his eyebrows suggestively, just to watch John's reaction. Narrowed eyes and then an eye roll. Perfect. If only he could get an arm cross...

"Didn't take you as a relationship kind of guy," John responded, settling into a chair and stretching his long legs out under the table beside Harry, who greeted them softly .

"I'm not normally," Jack responded easily. "But with the right person...it can be nice. Why...either of you offering?" he joked, enjoying the way Harry's ears turned red at the conversation he suddenly had been forced into with their presence.

"Buy me a drink first," John rolled his eyes and Jack almost started at that familiar response.

"That, can be arranged, my friend," Jack said, gesturing expansively toward the well-stocked bar.

John opened his mouth to reply but just then the door to the pub swung open and for a moment, a strange lull fell over the crowd. Standing silhouetted in the doorway was the strange, mysterious, gorgeous woman they had all met this afternoon and even the most stoic, reserved soldiers sitting around the bar took a moment to admire her. Jack smiled and Rose flashed a brilliant grin back at him then suddenly the noise began again as all the patrons turned back to their drinks and conversations once again.

Benton followed Rose into the pub chuckling, amused at her unexpectedly dramatic entrance. "Well, you apparently made quite the impression today," he said to her as they both waited for their drinks to arrive at the bar.

"I guess," Rose laughed. "Blimey. I felt like I was in the middle of some cheesy romance film. I just hope I made an impression on the Doctor."

"Well, according to Jack, you left him speechless and _that_ is something I think you're going to have to teach me. It would be a useful skill to have."

Rose grinned up at him then stuck her tongue in her teeth and eyed him flirtily. "It could be a little tricky...I'm afraid your bum probably doesn't look quite as good as mine in this skirt." Benton laughed out loud as Rose continued, "But give me some mascara and I'll see what I can do."

"Jack was right...you'll give him a run for his money. You'll give all of us a run for our money, I think," he said, ushering Rose over to the table where Harry immediately stood up, followed quickly by a sheepish looking Jack. John just raised an eyebrow from his whiskey. He was eyeing Benton closely. The diplomat had been flirting with him...John had seen her eyeing him up just a moment before.

Benton cleared his throat as John's gaze on him grew uncomfortable and said, "Rose, you remember Harry from dinner on Sunday," Rose nodded and he continued, "and you met Jack and John this afternoon."

"Nice to see you again," Rose said politely. Jack grabbed her hand and kissed the back of it.

"It is more than just nice to see you once more, Rose Tyler," he said, winking at her before letting go of her hand and John snorted into his whiskey. Benton scooted over into the booth, leaving Rose to sit next to Jack across from the silent John, who was examining the slightly sticky pub table with great intent.

The four of them began talking about Rose's first day at UNIT while John stoically studied his whiskey (and Rose, when he thought she wasn't looking), which transformed into all of them telling their tales of first days at new places (Jack's story of working as a bouncer at a club for people with strange fetishes - and when he said 'people' he actually meant aliens - and Harry's about his first patient examination were especially funny). Through it all, Rose was charming and genuine, interested in their stories and in the men themselves, knowing just when to joke and banter and when to sit back and listen.

This was proving to be a problem to John, who, now on his third whiskey was having considerable trouble finding those glaring faults he'd decided it was his mission tonight to glean from this evening with her. She seemed...well...rather perfect. Plus he kept finding himself getting distracted by the way the light glinted over her golden blonde hair or the way she stuck her tongue in her teeth when she said something especially clever or even the way her fingers absently drummed on the table as she listened to his friends tell funny stories.

After a while, Jack, Harry and Benton fell into a friendly bloke banter about the football game currently on the large telly screen over the bar and Rose transferred her gaze to meet John's eyes, still fixed on her.

"Did I pass?" she asked.

"Did you pass what?" he grunted, looking down at his glass to hide his confusion.

"You've been sitting there staring at me for the past hour and a half with your brow all scrunch-y, studying me like I'm a faulty engine of some sort," she replied, raising an eyebrow at him and waving a hand at him vaguely.

"I have not," he retorted and her other eyebrow joined the first. "And my brow is not 'scrunch-y'. And 'scrunch-y' is a rubbish made-up word, anyway. Thought you were supposed t'be a linguistics expert."

"I am a linguistics expert and I beg to differ," she responded, grinning at him. "About your brow, not about the word 'scrunch-y'. I don't think I'll ever say that again, actually. It is a rubbish word. So...let's have it. What's bothering you so much?" When he didn't respond, she leaned across the table toward him and lowered her voice conspiratorially, "Do you not like moles?"

"What?" he managed to get out. Whatever he had been expecting her to say, it was not that. What did she mean? The small rodents? The spies? The skin imperfections?

"Moles," she replied conversationally. "Do you not like them? Because I've got one. Right between my shoulder blades," she said, rolling her eyes as if this exasperated her for some reason. "Ridiculous, really."

"Ah," John answered, looking down at his drink again. So he could now only speak in one syllable phrases? That was certainly a fault, but he imagined it was more his fault than hers.

So...the skin imperfection, then. Although, as his mind drifted over to suddenly picture said mole, the image he was coming back with wasn't imperfect in the slightest. Because he would only be able to see that mole she didn't have a shirt on. And, without a shirt, he could also picture a number of other things. Namely the two delightful soft round things that were rather wonderfully pushed up and accentuated by her suit jacket at the moment.

And that thought finally pulled him up short. What the hell was he doing? Stupid human libido.

And why did he always put 'human' in front of that?

"You've clearly been trying to figure out some fundamental flaw with me so you can throw me out in the scrap heap with the rest of your faulty parts. So...let's have it," her honeyed golden eyes suddenly fixed on his and he started in surprise at the intensity there.

He frowned at her and crossed his arms across his chest, not liking the way she could so easily get him off kilter. "I don't know what you're talking about," he replied evenly.

"Oh. Ok, then!" she replied, smiling broadly at him and the intensity was gone, the normal warm tones of hazel back once more. He blinked at the sudden change in demeanor and then settled down further into his seat. "Did you get that equalizer installed?" Rose asked changing the subject rapidly, taking a sip of her rum and coke and watching for the faint flush of red she knew would flood to the tips of his fabulous ears. She was not disappointed.

"Yeah," he said, finishing off his third whiskey with a deep swallow. "And I coulda figured it out myself."

" 'Course you could have," Rose responded with a genuine smile. "You're brilliant."

He gaped at her once again as he didn't detect any hint of teasing or contrition in her voice, simply like she was stating a fact, like she believed it. Like she believed in him, of all people.

She didn't even know him. What had he ever done to deserve her faith? How could he ever deserve the faith of someone like Rose Tyler?

"But you know. even brilliant people sometimes get stuff wrong. Sometimes it's so easy to get caught up in the little stuff," she continued, raising her eyes to meet his, "that you miss what's right in front of you. Or behind you. Or, you know, in your hands but the wrong way 'round," she finished, and there was the tease he'd been looking for earlier. But he suddenly found he didn't mind the teasing. In fact, he rather enjoyed it.

"I guess," he replied slowly, his leather jacket creaking as he uncrossed his arms to lay them, fists still clenched, on the table, unexpectedly near hers.

"And sometimes, even if you can do it yourself...sometimes it's just better with two," she said quietly, reaching over to lightly brush her fingertips across the back of his right hand. It was a feather light touch, just barely there, but the hand relaxed instantly and turned, palm up the fingers reaching out, as if it was searching for mates to twine with. He didn't know what to do or say then, once again entranced by this strange woman who seemed to know how to speak to his very soul...a soul he had very recently been convinced didn't exist anymore. Maybe it was the alcohol raging through his system, maybe it was her proximity or maybe it the electricity her skin in contact with his seemed to spark, he wasn't sure, but he suddenly felt overwhelmed with emotions he couldn't quite place so he just sat there, frozen, watching her.

Her fingers brushed lightly against his once more, she gave him a slow, almost sad smile and then she stood up. Benton, Jack and Harry immediately broke from the conversation they had mostly just been pretending to have to look up at her.

"This was fun, boys! We'll have to do it again sometime! But I've got a drive back to the Lethbridge-Stewarts and we've all got work in the morning. One of you drive that big drunk lump home," she said, pointing at John who opened his mouth to protest, only shutting it in the face of her cheeky wink as she swept out of the bar.

Surprisingly, it was Harry who spoke first as all four of them (and probably a considerable number of other men), watched her walk elegantly out of the pub. "That is quite a woman," Doctor Sullivan said, tipping back the rest of his beer before standing up to put on his jacket.

John found he couldn't disagree.


	10. The Flashback

When Rose arrived back at the Lethbridge-Stewart residence, she found that most of the lights in the house were out, meaning Doris and Alistair had already turned in the for the evening. Rose made her way around to the back garden and slipped into the TARDIS instead of going into the house.

"Hello, Beautiful," she murmured, running her hand along the wall as she walked through halls.

The TARDIS pulsed warmly back to her. _Hello, Golden One. How is our Doctor?_

"Complicated," Rose answered, sighing heavily and then sending a wave of thanks to the TARDIS as she recognized the door in front of her. She pushed it open and took a deep breath, observing the oddly familiar room around her.

_He is always complicated,_ She answered. _Is the room sufficient? I tried to match it to the one in your memory and what I have seen of our future._

"It's perfect," Rose breathed, walking in further to run her hands over the dark duvet. It was a near-perfect copy of _their_ room, his ninth regeneration's and hers, although he had always insisted in that body that it was his room. Sharing rooms...terribly domestic. Never mind that there was a drawer of her knickers in his dresser and that the closet featured just as many hoodies as jumpers. She suspected it was mostly because he could then tell Jack that Rose was sleeping in _his_ bed. He always had been very possessive in this form.

His tenth form, eager to win back her affection after the regeneration and to prove to her that he was willing to make them work again, had insisted on a wonderful new room that was _theirs_ (he was much better at domestic the second time around - even if he was loath to admit it) but she had many fond memories of this room, of this bed.

The TARDIS had indeed matched the room quite well, but, as Rose settled onto the large bed, she realized that even the TARDIS couldn't match the smell of him that would permeate this room later. Engine grease, leather, Time and something exotic and spicy...just him. Rose laughed as a strange mixture of those things filled the air. The TARDIS was trying. "It's fine," she said, reaching up to pat the wall over the bed. "It'll smell like him eventually and that's what's important. Where has he been sleeping since the War?"

The TARDIS hummed at her sadly and, instead of words, sent her images of a clearly exhausted Doctor stumbling around the ship, clearly avoiding sleep at all costs, followed by an image of him uncomfortably cramped and passed out on the console room floor, clearly in the throes of a terrible nightmare. They were accompanied by the TARDIS' sense of helplessness and sorrow and Rose felt them as her own.

"I'm sorry," Rose said, quietly. He'd suffered from terrible nightmares even when they were together and she had always held him tightly through his terrors, calming him with her presence and warmth. She wondered if this human version of him suffered them as well.

Standing up and stripping off her suit to find a pair of soft cotton jimjams in one of the dresser drawers, Rose then let herself curl up under the duvet in the large bed and curl into the pillow as if it were the Time Lord. She sighed deeply at the familiar textures and sounds around her and let herself fall into a deep sleep, thoughts and memories of him in the forefront of her mind.

-

_Several (depending on who you ask) years prior _

Jack Harkness was frustrated. Well, merely frustrated didn't even seem to cover it. He was baffled, he was beaten and he was discouraged.

And, what's more, he was frustrated in more ways than he had ever been. He was physically frustrated because this was admittedly the longest dry spell he had ever had. Too much time running around saving the universe and not enough time shagging. He was also sexually frustrated because the tension flying about this frankly magnificent timeship (and the planets they visited, and the jails they were locked in and the restaurants they ate in, and, and...well everywhere his companions went) was operating a fever pitch almost continually and the two generating it (both of whom he wouldn't mind jumping himself) pretended as if it didn't exist at all. He was being driven bonkers by a 900 year old technically asexual Time Lord and a 19 year old stubborn-as-hell human.

So, Jack Harkness, being the problem-solver, lothario and closet romantic that he was, had set about to get the two of them together for some much-deserved tension release and then to very soon get himself off this ship and to a pleasure planet for AT LEAST a week.

AND...that was finally why he was so VERY frustrated. Despite his very best efforts to push his two idiot best friends to release said tension, at every turn he was stonewalled, stymied or stunned by one or both of them.

He'd nicked the sonic and locked them in a very small broom closet together ("accidentally") - and the Doctor had used a spare to get them out. He'd arranged for Rose to be harmlessly kidnapped and sold into a king's harem where she was forced to wear some very skimpy "clothes" and could only be reclaimed by her bondmate - and the Doctor had made Jack go rescue her while, as a thunderous (and very sexy) Storm overthrew the monarchy. And so it had been Jack to carry her back to the TARDIS in her non-existent clothes (which had not helped his libido) and she'd been in her sweats by the time the Doctor had returned. Not that she'd looked any less appealing like that, honestly...how the Doctor didn't just take hold of those baggy sweats and yank them down and damn, there he'd gotten distracted again. They'd visited a planet very concerned with sexual frustration (he thought the TARDIS had helped him out with that one) and the two of them had been locked in cell together with their only means of escape to FINALLY shag one another and the Doctor and Rose had managed to annoy the guards so much they'd finally been released with a royal pardon and an order to get themselves and their spoons and recorders the hell off the planet.

And so, Jack Harkness found himself pacing the floor of his room trying to avoid the hillbilly concert going on in the console room.

Seriously. Who carried a recorder and set of spoons around in his pocket? Nope, no need to answer that, really. Who knows what else that crazy alien had in there?

Fact #1: The Doctor and Rose belonged together.

Fact #2: The Doctor and Rose were not, for some unfathomable reason, together.

Fact #3: Jack Harkness needed to get off this ship and er...get off. Preferably multiple times with multiple partners in multiple positions...annnnndd he was getting distracted again.

Fact #4: It was apparently Jack's job to get them together. And when Jack Harkness put his mind to something, he made it happen.

Taking a deep breath, he bravely left the room to go find Rose (and to break her recorder, if necessary). He found her quickly (thanks to the TARDIS again, he suspected), unsurprisingly, in the Wardrobe Room. He and Rose often retreated in here when the Doctor was being a prat and had spent hours trying on the gorgeous outfits together. As an advanced society male completely comfortable with his sexuality, Jack enjoyed these sessions as much as Rose (and not just when she needed him to button her into or out of something). Today he found her in the 48th century evening wear, eyeing an absolutely delicious (and sinful) red dress and the accompanying black kitten heels. Jack sighed.

"She always gives you the best stuff," he whined, sidling up beside her to run his fingers appreciatively over the fabric of the dress. It flowed over his hands like water and, god, that would be gorgeous on Rose.

It would also be just as gorgeous _off_ Rose. He sighed. Bad Jack.

"I dunno," Rose said, turning to him teasingly with her tongue in her teeth (and oh, he needed to get off this ship). "Take a look at these!" she giggled, handing him a pair of tight black leather trousers that he was fairly certain he'd have to be poured into.

"Oh, wow," Jack breathed, holding the trousers up to himself and then grabbing the skin-tight red shirt (made of the same fabric as Rose's dress) that went with it. "We would be absolutely gorgeous, sweetheart. No one would be able to look away," he said, confidently.

"Yeah," Rose replied, wistfully drawing her fingers over the dress again. _No one except the one guy I actually want looking at me,_ she added in her head and Jack looked at her, understanding her unspoken wistfulness. "But you know he'd never take us anywhere we could wear 'em."

"Why not?" Jack asked absently, holding the clothes up to himself still and looking in the mirror.

"C'mon, Jack!" Rose said, rolling her eyes. "You know why. He'd never let me out of the TARDIS like that. He snarked at me for hours about that tank top I had one while we were trapped in that cell. At least when he wasn't banging those awful spoons."

Jack swallowed down his rather crude response to that and contemplated his next move. Rose was right, the Doctor had been a bit cruel about her top but she also had apparently missed the raw, needy looks that Doctor had spared her way, admiring the exposed curve of her neck and the low bust line, not to mention the sliver of skin that showed when she stretched. Jack hadn't missed any of that (or the Doctor's expressions, either). "You know what, Rose? Why don't you take that dress to your room and get dolled up and leave the convincing to me? I'll get us there. I promise."

"And how you going to do that, mister?" Rose asked, sauntering over to him and putting her hands behind his neck. "Your usual MO is not going to work on the Doctor."

He rested his hands lightly on her waist. "Wouldn't you like to know?" he said, kissing her on the forehead and then ducking out from her arms with his new wardrobe in hand.

His plan mainly consisted of sweet talking and begging the TARDIS who, for her part, seemed to be entirely on board with his strategy.

Sauntering into the console room, he found the Doctor under one of gratings, large booted feet sticking up in the air, swearing softly and banging on things. "Where're we headed, Doc?" Jack asked, jumping up on the bench usually occupied by Rose and admiring the Doctor's tight jeans since the Time Lord couldn't see him.

"None of your business," came the Doctor's muffled reply, grudgingly muffled by the grating. He'd been piloting the TARDIS to a delightful little ice planet he was sure Rose would enjoy (and where she would have to wear a heavy parka and snow trousers. Not much to leer at in snow trousers) when She'd suddenly veered off course toward somewhere else. "And don't call me 'Doc'," he snapped.

He'd just spent six hours, forty-two minutes and thirty-seven seconds locked away in a cell trying desperately not to snog (oh, fine, shag) his gorgeous stupid-sexy-halter-top wearing completely-off-limits brilliant companion senseless. And THEN spent a hurried, panting sixteen minutes and twelve seconds in a sordid date with his shower and his traitorous right hand in a disturbingly human act he would never admit to indulging in at an alarming rate of late.

Jack just laughed. "You don't know where we're going, do you?" he said, grinning and silently thanking the TARDIS.

"Of course I know," The Doctor retorted, pushing himself up from the small hole he'd been in and then grabbing for the console as the TARDIS shuddered and bumped, landing them... somewhere. He turned from Jack to look at the viewscreen. "We're..." he started and then promptly dropped his screwdriver. Jack smirked at his thunderous expression. "You had something to do with this," he accused, scowling at Jack and eyeing the man's get-up.

"I don't even know where we are!" Jack exclaimed innocently, whooping inside.

"We're on Mentula in the middle of the 48th century and if you think for one moment that I'm letting Rose go out there..."

"Letting Rose go out where?" came her honeyed voice from the edge of the console room and both men turned to look at her.

And the Doctor promptly forgot how to speak.

In any language.

Jack couldn't blame him.

Thank Rassilon he hadn't picked the screwdriver up yet because it would currently be down on the floor again.

Along with his jaw.

"The Doctor, Rose, has just taken us to THE premiere nightlife planet in three solar systems and four centuries," Jack said, smugly. "Thanks, Doc!" he added, cheekily.

"Really? Wow!" Rose squeaked, bounding her way across the console room and throwing her arms around the still-shell shocked Time Lord's neck. He just managed to get his mouth closed before she flung herself at him (good thing too, wouldn't want to bite his tongue - no, he'd much rather bite her tongue. Or her neck, right there in front of him as she buried her face in the crook of his shoulder. He would bite it harshly then soothe it with his tongue, mark her as his and then travel his lips down to the considerable cleavage on display in that barely there dress and holy Omega, what is he thinking?)

He roughly pulled away from her embrace (and oh, the feeling of her breasts rubbing against his chest as she had been pressed against him. Had her nipples been hard? He thought maybe they had but perhaps it was just a bit cold in here...'course it didn't feel cold to him. Felt hot, hot, hot) and spun back to the console, fiddling with one of the levers there and missing her disappointed expression. The TARDIS was currently chastising him in his head for some reason (she did bring them here on purpose, cheeky woman). What was his Timeship playing at?

Jack, however, had not missed Rose's chastened look and jumped in, strolling over to put his arm around Rose's bare shoulders, making the Doctor want to growl in possessive anger. "Just you wait, Rosie! The lights, the drinks, the _dancing_," he emphasized, watching for the slight cringe in the Doctor's shoulders at the pair's favourite "secret" euphemism for sex. Jack was a bit sorry for putting him through this at the moment but he knew it was going to take a mighty push to the make the Time Lord finally cave and this raucous planet was his Hail Mary.

"Aren't you going to come, Doctor?" Rose asked softly, cocking her head the side and studying him closely. His shoulders were set and his back was full of tension. If she could see his face, she had no doubt his mouth would be a harsh line, his eyes blazing. Why was he angry?

"No," he said firmly, an angry tone coloring his Northern voice. "Why would I want to go out there? It's a rubbish planet full of stupid, horny apes intent on making wanton fools of themselves."

"Then why'd you bring us here?" Rose retorted, crossing her arms over her chest and turning from Jack to scowl at the back of his closely-shorn head.

The Doctor tossed a derisive look over his shoulder at her and Rose got his message loud and clear. _Because that's all we are to him,_ she thought. _Stupid apes with no control over our impulses._ He'd been trying to tell her that all along and she'd been studiously ignoring it, cradling the small flame of hope that he might see her for something more. Her joy started to fall and she suddenly felt silly in this ridiculous get-up. She'd so carefully applied her make-up (subtle, to make her look older - he seemed to gaze at her longer when she was fresh-faced, she thought. Or apparently had imagined), artfully done her hair (an updo that looked easy and casual but had actually taken her almost forty-five minutes to perfect) and donned this border-line obscene dress, all with the faint hope he might spare even one glance her way. She sighed. Oh how far she'd fallen from the confident young terror who used to light up the night clubs of London with Shireen, now desperately pining for even a smile from a man who was clearly not interested.

Trying to get the sparkle back in her eyes, Jack stepped back from Rose, letting his hands slide down her arms and then motioning for her to twirl. He noted that the Doctor turned his head ever so slightly to watch her circle, his hands clenched into fists. "You look absolutely stunning," Jack breathed and that wasn't part of the act. The red, slinky fabric clung to her, leaving practically nothing to the imagination (including the fact that she could not possibly be wearing any undergarments). It stopped mid thigh, just long enough to be decent, and the heels she sank to the pilot's bench to put on made her legs look impossibly long, calves flexed and toned from running, thighs slim but powerful. She practically made Jack's mouth water and, judging by the white knuckled man to his left, he wasn't the only one. The Doctor, for his part, had just been admiring those thighs as well, in addition to thinking some very un-Time Lord-like thoughts about better places they could be located than on his jumpseat. Like wrapped around his waist. Or up on his shoulders. Or pressed against his as he takes her from behind..."Don't you think so, Doctor?" Jack nudged.

All that came from the Doctor's turned back was a grudging 'hmpf' and Jack practically saw red as Rose's face fell once again before settling into a determined line as she stood up and stuck her hand out to him, ignoring the sullen Time Lord. "C'mon, Jack! Let's get out there! I'm thirsty and dying for some dancing! You've still got to show me your moves, Captain!" she laughed as Jack turned his attention from the foolish alien back to her with a full-toothed smile and if her joviality sounded a bit forced, he ignored it.

"Oh, you just wait! I'll show you moves that haven't even been invented yet!" he replied, waggling his eyebrows at her and hip-checking her out the doors.

With Rose safely outside, he stuck his head back into the console room, the happy smile fading away, replaced by a hard expression he turned on the Time Lord who was now staring despondently toward the door. The Doctor startled when Jack's angry face reappeared. "She looks gorgeous and you know it," Jack said, frowning at the much older man. "She's not going to wait forever you know. One of these days she'll find someone who is willing to appreciate her for all the miraculous things she is. And she wants it to be you but if you don't make a move, eventually she'll settle for someone else." The Doctor just gaped at him, dumbfounded. "And, just so you know, you're an idiot," Jack finished. With that, he shut the door and turned back to find Rose. If the Doctor wouldn't give her a spectacular evening out and appreciate how beautiful she was, he would. And then he'd bring her back safely to the TARDIS and go find someone to appreciate him.

When they arrived at the door to a club Jack knew, he wasn't surprised that the two of them were ushered in right away. He'd been right in the wardrobe room; they were the center of attention as they walked the streets and into the club. Jack had spent the short walk from the TARDIS coaching Rose on what to expect from 48th century men (and women), which drinks she should avoid and which cultural taboos to watch out for.

Once in the door, Jack stuck his wrist out and motioned for Rose to do the same. A bored looking hostess slapped a bracelet on each of them and Jack's immediately glowed a bright red while Rose's was a light white tinged just a bit pink. "What're these?" she asked, holding the bracelet up to study it.

"Intention bracelet," Jack responded, steering her with a hand on her exposed back toward the bar. He leaned in close to her and his lips brushed her ear to be heard over the loud music. "It's a way for other clubbers to know who to look for...helps avoid awkward situations." Jack motioned for the bartender and ordered two lime green drinks, handing one to Rose.

"Don't leave your drink anywhere," he lectured briefly.

"I've been to a club before, Jack," Rose said, rolling her eyes at his big brother attitude.

"Not like this you haven't," he responded. And Rose had to agree with that. All around her in this teeming multitude of life were humanoids all in various stages of dress (or undress) all intent on grinding away their cares and frustrations to the intoxicating pulse of the music here. She was certain at least half the people on the outskirts of the club were in the middle of having sex right on the floor and many of the rest seemed on the way there. "Anyway, the color of your bracelet indicates what your intentions are for the evening. Yours is white. Means that you just want to do some dancing and flirting. Nothing serious and no sex," he said, raising an eyebrow at her.

"And if I change my mind about that?" she asked, raising her chin defiantly at him.

"Then it'll change colors," Jack responded. "But...think about it before you do anything rash, Rosie. I know he's difficult but..."

"He doesn't own me, Jack," Rose retorted. "He doesn't even want me. He probably can't even want me. You heard him in the console room. I'm nothing but a stupid ape that can't control my body. Might as well act like it then," she said, tipping back the rest of her drink far too quickly and scanning the room for another white bracelet.

Jack watched her sadly. "I know, sweetheart. But come find me before you make any big decisions, ok? And don't leave without me. Promise?" he asked, sticking out his pinky to Rose in a charming little Earth gesture she'd taught him and the two of them had adopted together.

"I promise," she said, linking her pinky with his briefly. "Now get out there! Don't you worry about me!" she laughed. "That red bracelet of yours isn't going to satisfy itself!" She tapped him on the bum and watched as he sauntered away, quickly swallowed up by the writhing crowd of bodies. Rose turned back to the bar and ordered another of the lime green drinks before searching out another white bracelet. There didn't seem to be many in the club. Most of them were screaming fire-engine red. She sighed and leaned against the bar and then a moment later a tap came to her shoulder. Turning around, she was surprised to face a distinctly uncomfortable looking young man in a plaid shirt with a blue vest over the top.

"Would you, er...like to dance?" he asked shyly, shifting uncomfortably and looking at her shoes.

Rose looked him over and her gaze settled on his left wrist where a decidedly white bracelet shone at her. "Sure!" she said, grinning at him, making the young man blush and look away. Rose wondered what such a painfully shy, conservatively dressed young man was doing here. He looked distinctly out of place. Or perhaps out of time.

He moved as if to take her hand and then changed his mind, jamming it in his pocket. "Ah, shall we?" he stuttered.

Rose took pity on him and led him out on the the dance floor. Once she'd turned away from him, he seemed a bit more comfortable and placed his hands stiffly on her hips but didn't really move. Rose wanted to snort to herself. Best nightlife spot in three galaxies and four centuries and she'd managed to find the most awkward bloke in the bar. She turned around and placed her arms on his shoulders, careful to keep a friendly distance between their bodies, not easy to do on this crowded, sweaty floor. He noticeably gulped and looked even more uncomfortable. "So what brings you here?" Rose asked, trying to put him a little more at ease. Clearly something was bothering him and, even if she wasn't going to settle any of her problems tonight, perhaps she could help someone else with his.

The man looked a bit panicked and glanced down before his face promptly became a bright red and he swung his gaze back up very quickly. Rose wanted to snicker again...he'd clearly just gotten an eyeful and didn't quite know what to do with it. "I, er, well...my wife and our, umm, friends told me I had to," he admitted, looking over her right shoulder at something (someone?).

"Your wife and your friends, huh?" she asked, raising an eyebrow at him. Well, it was the 48th century.

"Not like that!" he squeaked.

"Seems like an odd thing for your wife to want you to do," she said, letting her other eyebrow join the first and smiling at his still blushed face. "Go out dancing with another woman?"

"Tell me about it," he grumbled.

"Makes this simple though," she said, smiling gently at him and trying to dispel some of his nerves.

"How is this in any way simple?" he asked, sighing heavily as if he had expected her to be difficult. She wasn't trying to be difficult, however.

"You're married and clearly not looking for anything and I'm hung up on a bloke who doesn't even know I'm a woman so, you know, white bracelets. Nothing serious. Simple," she explained, shrugging and trailing off.

His eyes had softened at her when she'd mentioned her 'bloke', she thought. "I'm sure he knows. Anyway, he's probably just being an idiot," the man said quietly, in an fondly exasperated voice.

Rose heaved a sigh and adjusted her arms around his neck slightly. "How do you know?" she asked.

"Oh, trust me. I know," he responded, smirking slightly and looking the most at ease than she'd seen him. He began to move a little bit with her...still not really dancing but not such an awkward, stiff stance either. He smiled at her again, an almost secret smile Rose didn't quite understand. "I bet he already looks at you every moment of every day like you're the most important woman in the entire universe...he probably just does it when he thinks you're not looking," the man answered, his voice making her think that he was a man who loved very deeply, very honestly. His wife was a lucky lady, she imagined. Suddenly looking as though he were remembering a story of some kind, he continued, "Anyway...your bloke, one day he'll wake up and realize just what he's been missing and what an absolute prat he's been and he'll make his move. You just wait."

"Maybe," she said, grudgingly. If only that were true...She turned her head away from him slightly and then squeaked in surprise as he suddenly leaned in close to her.

"It might even be today," the man whispered into her ear, throwing his arms around her and grabbing her into a tight, friendly hug. Rose squeaked in surprise again and then watched, open mouthed, as the mysterious stranger disappeared off into the crowd. She shook her head and let her suddenly empty arms fall to her sides. Well, that had certainly been strange.

Wondering how long she had to stay here in this club before she could go back to the TARDIS without wounded pride, she had just been turning to go back and have a seat at the bar when an arm snaked around her waist and pulled her tightly up against a very solid body. She looked down to see a muscular forearm locked around her waist and was about to use her pointed heel on the toe of the man holding her to him when a gravelly, wonderfully Northern voice purred in her ear, "May I have this dance?"

"Doctor?" she breathed, incredulously. It sounded like the Doctor, smelled like the Doctor...but there was no leather jacket and there was obvious intent in his grip on her hips and those last two unfamiliar characteristics seemed to override the first few.

She heard a low chuckle, unlike any sound she'd ever heard him make before and then felt him smile against her neck. Instead of answering, he reached down and pulled one of her hands up to place it gently on the delicate shell of an over-large ear.

"Convinced?" he asked in the same low, growly voice but holding a tinge of amusement as well.

"Um, yeah," Rose stammered and he moved his hand back to her hip while she left hers up high, twining it back so it held his neck to hers.

"Good," he answered. With that, he began moving against her in a way she never would have expected him to know how to do. She could count on one hand the times he'd danced with her. Twice in the console room to a little Glenn Miller in a show of masculinity to Jack and once at an intergalactic ball where waltzing with someone was tantamount to a proposal and a buxom, four-armed queen had tried to convince the Doctor to dance with her. Rose moved her hips with his automatically, barely daring to breathe and certainly not daring to turn around in case it broke the fragile moment and his curious mood.

"Wouldn't want you dancin' with any more pretty boys," he eventually said, as hands started to get bolder. Ah, so he'd seen her dancing with her mysterious stranger. Perhaps it was a little bit more green-eyed jealousy than blue-eyed intent that prompted him to dance with her like this. But something had drug him out of the TARDIS to come after her. Probably just thinking couldn't handle herself out here without doing something stupid. She felt a sharp tug of disappointment and then felt another sharp tug, this time him pulling her back against his hard, lean body into something else decidedly hard and not-lean feeling at all.

She gasped and felt him smirk once more and with that, his left arm came up from her hip to wrap around her waist and she glanced down for the first time to see his bracelet. It was bright red, like Jack's had been. That flash of red affected her even more than the sight of his bare forearm and then a flash of worry shot through her body, quickly flooding out the arousal there. Something was wrong, something had to be wrong. The Doctor didn't act like this, as much as she desperately wanted him to.

He seemed to feel her tense in his arms and whispered, "Rose?" in a voice much closer to his natural timbre. She spun around quickly, careful to keep a distance between their hips. His hands fell loosely back to her hips, then down to his sides as he studied her with concern.

"Are you all right?" Rose asked, moving to press a sweaty palm against his forehead before reminding herself that she didn't really know what temperature he was supposed to feel like so that test really didn't do much good. His cheeks were flushed and she thought he felt a bit warmer than usual, but then this club was hot.

The Doctor was so keyed into Rose at the moment, that simple press of more of her skin against his caused him to inhale sharply. The scent of her arousal was in the air, overwhelming the myriad of pheromones being dumped into the air by the multitudes of turned-on species around them. Hers were the only ones he cared about sensing and they were distracting him beyond coherent thought. "I'm fine, Rose," the Doctor answered, his hands nervously clenching at his sides. What was she doing? Why had they stopped? Wasn't this what she wanted? Isn't that what Jack had said? He'd decided it was certainly what he wanted and he was done playing their silly games. He knew what he wanted and it was her. He tilted his head to the side, watching her confusedly and Rose noted his dilated pupils and then traced her eyes down his body.

Oh, dear Lord, that was one hell of a tight tshirt. It left about as much up to the imagination as her dress did. And her imagination had apparently not been creative enough when it came to the Doctor. He was GORGEOUS. Then she settled her gaze on his ubiquitous black jeans and the final, bulging proof that he obviously was not 'fine' (and, apparently was also well-endowed and dressed to the right). "C'mon, Doctor," she said, trying to repress her sigh and reaching down to entwine their fingers. Be mature about this, Rose, she scolded herself.

The Doctor inhaled sharply again, flooding his senses with the intoxicating smell of her, as her fingers wrapped so intimately with his, a normal, comforting gesture between the two of them meaning so much more in this moment. How could the slide of her fingers against his be so incredibly erotic? Her hand was so warm in his and he couldn't help but imagine how it might feel intimately wrapped around a few other parts of him.

But the rational (and pessimistic) side of him was starting to sense her doubt and confusion. He'd intended to come here, flirt with her, dance with her and then for them to leave together for the TARDIS and finally take their relationship to the level it had been barrelling toward the whole time they'd known one another, but this didn't feel quite like it had in his fantasies. His fantasy Rose grabbed him by the hand (or the belt-loops or the lapels of his jacket - really he wasn't picky) and drug him back the TARDIS with unmitigated haste and a whole lot of very messy snogging. Real-life Rose was not dragging him from this club like a woman intent on experiencing the single greatest night of pleasure she'd ever had.

Which is what he intended tonight to be. And every night hereafter.

As they left, he felt a few sets of eyes on them and turned slightly to meet the gaze of Rose's pretty boy and the attractive red-head he was dancing, both of whom smiled at him warmly and then Jack who gave him a thumbs up and another gesture which he interpreted as quite obscene and decided to overlook. Rose tugged him out of the club and down the street until they had reached enough of a suitable distance from the bustling city center that booming music didn't cover their words. He had grown increasingly nervous as they'd continued closer and closer to the TARDIS and Rose hadn't moved with much haste, hadn't snogged him (messily or otherwise) and, indeed, hadn't even spoken to him. Something was wrong. Somehow he'd managed to mess this up and he wasn't sure how. Maybe he should have offered her another drink? Should have taken his time more? Shouldn't have let himself get so aroused? He realized rather distractedly that his arm had made its way around Rose's waist and his thumb had quite adeptly found the fascinating, by chance, bare skin her back.

Then they stopped quite suddenly and Rose pulled him into an alley and, well, perhaps he'd been misjudging his second-guess. One small part of his brain was contemplating what she was going to say, but the rest had very quickly started arranging scenarios involving this alley. Up against the wall, her legs wrapped around his waist. Her gripping those bricks roughly as he dropped to his knees and pushed up her skirt to reveal her knicker-less as he knew she was. Her on her knees and him running his fingers through her hair as his jeans came down...

Hmm...it appeared once he'd made his mind up, he was quite fixated on the whole 'shagging Rose senseless' idea. And he really wasn't sure where some of those very intricate fantasies were coming from. He'd certainly never experienced any of that in his Time Lord lifetime before.

"All right, Doctor, what's wrong?" Rose asked, dropping his hand and crossing her arms in front of her (oh, and pushing up her breasts. That was a spectacular dress. He was going to have to find the maker and shake the man or woman or alien's hand). it accentuated her delicate curves, dipped just low enough to be tantalizing but not low enough for his girl to come across as lewd, and all-in-all, just made them look, well, wonderful. And fuckable. And, interestingly enough, had he ever been this distracted by her breasts before? He didn't think so. Aroused was a very curious state. And a rather fantastic one, he might add.

"What?" he managed, too busy with thoughts of her magnificent breasts and her blonde head bobbing to manage much more than that.

"You're all flushed and hot and your eyes are funny," Rose said, matter-of-factly, looking at him with concern-tinged annoyance. "Did you have one of those red drinks in the club? Jack told me not to drink those. Didn't think it would affect you, Mr. Superior Biology, but that's gotta be it, to make you all -" she trailed off and blushed after gesturing vaguely below his belt.

"Make me all what, Rose Tyler?" the Doctor asked, pressing a bit closer to her even as Rose took a step back. He was really out of his depth here in human seduction and more than a bit confused and this wasn't exactly going as he had planned.

Rose didn't answer for a moment, just looked pointedly over his shoulder and he decided to try one last time to salvage this line of conversation and he finished "aroused?" for her at the same time she blurted out "hard".

He blinked at her language and then grinned wolfishly, moving forward once again and placing his hands on either side of her head against the wall. "Right in one, Rose Tyler. A descriptive, if a bit crude, phrase, but you're right. I am. An' why d'you think that might be?"

To his surprise, Rose simply sighed again. "I dunno. You're the genius and I'm the horny ape, remember? Best guess is you must have had some kind of aphrodisiac, Doctor. C'mon. We'll get you back the TARDIS and get you sorted. I promise not to jump you. Don't think I'm not going to tease you about this tomorrow, though," she answered, ducking under his arm and walking out toward the mouth of the alley, turning back to the gobsmacked Doctor staring after her, only after she realized that he seemed to be unmoving.

Rose started to move back to him when his hand reached out and took a hold of her wrist, tugging slightly so she came back right in front of him. His other hand reached up and cupped her cheek and Rose tried to control the involuntary shiver that shot through her at his touch. The universe really could be a bitch, she decided. One thumb gently traced her cheekbone and the other drew designs on the sensitive inside of her wrist. The Doctor used his hand on her cheek to tilt her face up to meet his gaze and this time Rose couldn't control her shiver. He was looking at her with such deep affection she thought she might melt into a puddle right there in front of him. Maybe there wasn't anything wrong with him. Maybe he simply wanted her after all.

"Precious girl," he murmured, leaning down and brushing his lips against her forehead. "I am so sorry," he whispered, pulling back to watch her closely with those deep blue eyes again.

Rose's heart fell. So it was some sort of drug or something in his system or something. Why else would he apologize? "What for?" she asked, her hands moving to absently fiddle with the bottom of his t-shirt nervously. She should really thank the maker of this thin, stretchy shirt for giving fodder to her next few decades of unrequited Doctor-fantasies.

She was torn from her musings on the brilliance of fabric when he began to speak again. "Rose, I'm sorry that my behaviour over the past few weeks has led you to believe that the only way I could ever want you is with involuntary chemical assistance," he said, matter-of-factly and Rose was fairly certain big words had never sounded quite so sexy to her.

Was he saying what she thought he was saying?

Her eyes shot up to meet his and she watched as the corners of his eyes crinkled a bit in amusement. "Oh," she replied. "And...and it's not? The only way, I mean?"

"It's not the way at all," he responded, shivering slightly as her thumb inadvertently slipped under the edge of his thin gray t-shirt and hit a sliver of skin above his waistband. "I don't need any assistance to want you, Rose Tyler. I want you. In every way you can think of and probably a sight more you haven't. I want you in my life, in my TARDIS and in my bed. I want you beside me eating chips and running for our lives and saving the universe. And have done so since the moment I first took your hand. And before that, it feels like. I don't know how, I don't know why and I certainly don't know what I've done to deserve you."

Rose blinked up at him, silent for a moment. "Then why haven't you.." she began and then trailed off, barely daring to believe what he was saying.

"I'm an old man, Rose. I've done a lot of terrible things and I've seen even more. Everything I've ever cared about has crumbled around me...most often destroyed by me own hand. An' I've been terrified that one day I'll lose you like I've lost everything else...but when you walked out of the TARDIS tonight without me, I realized I could lose you before I'd ever even had you, before you ever even knew. I realized just what I've been missing...and what an idiot I've been about it. Rickey's not nothing on me"

And it was true. As soon as she'd left the console room, he'd felt a terrible weight come crashing down around him. The Timelines around this planet, around the two of them, wove together in a complex and integral pattern and he could feel how much rested on this, on them. He might lose her one day, whether by Time or violence or distance but if he lost her today it was going to be through his own stupidity. He needed her. And he was going to have her. It was as if he'd woken up with a breath of fresh air, with a puff of hope and he wasn't going to let her go now.

Or ever.

Out of words except for the three most important ones that seemed to have been dancing on the cusp of his mind since 'There's me', three words he wasn't sure he'd ever be able to truly offer her, he bent his head and kissed her on the lips instead, light and chaste, testing the waters, seeing how she would respond. At first she didn't respond at all, still too shocked by his revelation and his cool, soft lips on hers and, just as the Doctor began to pull back, horrified that he might have somehow read everything wrong, her hands flew up to the back of his head to hold him there and her lips fervently attacked his own.

Rose had still been processing his surprising confession when he'd thrown her another loop with his gentle kiss. Shocked, it had taken her a moment to adjust to this new, wonderful development and, just as she'd caught up with him, he started to pull back so she'd responded as strong as she could, trying to pour her months of restraint into this first passionate kiss. Their kiss went from light and innocent to desperate and needy so fast it made both of their heads spin.

Rose broke from him after a few long and increasingly breathless moments, pulling back to gulp down deep lungfuls of air before he dove back in and pressed his mouth to hers once again. This time his tongue joined the forward press and Rose whimpered under him as his clever tongue seemed to expertly know just where to stroke to make her knees go weak. Running his hand down her back, the Doctor lingered a minute on her soft bum before continuing his path down to hike her leg up over his hip, pressing between her legs so they both had a thigh working to ease the other's building pressure. One of his hands had shoved aside the top of her dress to caress her breasts and the other had worked up underneath her skirt to cling to her, his wide palm spanning her entire thigh.

Rose would have been embarrassed at the damp patch she was sure she was leaving on his jeans if he hadn't seemed equally entranced by the feeling of her thigh rubbing against his denim-clad erection. A deep guttural moan came from one of them and Rose's hand worked its way between them to palm him and then a clatter and giggle from the mouth of the alley made them both whip their heads to the side, months of preparation priming them to run if needed.

"Sorry, mate!" a clearly very intoxicated man laughed, his hand up the skirt of the equally intoxicated woman with him. "Didn't know this alley was occupied. We'll just be on our way, have fun! Unless you'd like company?" he asked, peering blearily at the two of them, this hot random May-December couple looking deliciously tousled and about thirty seconds from shagging each other rotten.

"I don't think so," the Doctor growled, shifting his body to cover Rose's, shielding her chest from the other couple and smoothing her skirt back down over her thigh, although not detangling it from his hip.

Thoroughly chastened by his scathing expression, the two cleared off and the Doctor turned apologetic eyes on Rose, who quite suddenly giggled. One look at his affronted expression and the giggles turned into full out laughter and her leg fell from his hip as she doubled over, holding onto his shoulder for balance. After a moment, the Doctor's deep baritone boom joined hers and soon the two of them were back in each other's arms, holding to each other desperately, but for an entirely different purpose.

The Doctor gained control of himself first, pulling back to watch Rose's unencumbered mirth with a smirk. He crossed his arms and mock-frowned down at her but couldn't keep the mirth from his dancing blue eyes. "An' what, exactly, d'you think is so funny, Ms. Tyler?" he asked, quirking an eyebrow at her.

"S'just," Rose gasped, making an effort to stand up straight, "s'just so...us!"

His expression changed to something, on anyone else, might have been a pout. Rose laughed harder. Her dear Doctor could skulk with the best of him but sulking seemed to be beyond his range of emotions. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Rose snorted. "It means 'I'm so glad I met you...whoops, let's get turned into zombies!' Or...'I could save the world but lose you...oh, nevermind. Let's blow up 10 Downing!.' Or...let's see... 'of course I'm a manly man, Rose, complete with dancing. Now here, watch me resonate this concrete!'," she said in a poor approximation of what he presumed was his own Manchester brogue and then sticking her tongue in her teeth.

"Ok, ok," he huffed. "No need to poke fun. Here I am, finally having gotten up me nerve to make love to you and you're having a go at me."

Her head shot up to look him directly in the eyes and the Doctor fought the urge to glance down at his boots. Instead he held her wide-eyed gaze and took a step closer. "You...you want to make love to me?" Rose asked, looking up at him with something he thought was hope and he knew was a bit of fear. He knew because he was feeling exactly the same way

"Yeah," he answered, reaching down to entwine their fingers together, a normal comforting gesture in this new and terrifying maelstrom of their relationship. "That all right?" he asked, echoing one of his first questions to her and desperately hoping the answer would be the same.

"Yeah," she responded in the overwhelmed, breathless quality he remembered from that tense moment in the console room, oh, such a long time ago.

"TARDIS?" he asked quietly, leaning in close to her and brushing his lips gently against hers again.

"Yeah," she answered again and he released one of her hands, keeping the other held tightly as they walked back to the TARDIS. Neither of them spoke, both afraid once again to break the tenuous moment, terrified that the other might back out or away, both of their minds on what would happen on the other side of their beloved blue door.

Once they got inside, the Doctor let go of Rose's hand and turned to absently fiddle with a dial on the console, suddenly unsure of what exactly he was supposed to do next and feeling very vulnerable without his usual armor. He should probably offer her one last chance to decide whether or not this was truly what she wanted. Rotating back to her, he opened his mouth trying to come up with words when Rose solved his problem for him with her mouth on his.

He grunted in surprise as she surged forward, dragging his head down to meet his and pressing his body back against the center console. His massive brain was so busy calculating and memorizing the feel of her mouth and tongue and body against him and the miraculous needy, whimpering sounds she was making at him, he didn't even notice when her leg came up over his hip again until she rocked against him sharply, causing him to tear his mouth from hers as his head shot back with a deep, guttural groan.

"You have no idea how long I've wanted to do that," Rose panted at him, her tongue coming playfully to the corner of her mouth when he finally raised his eyes back to hers again.

He bent forward to nuzzle her neck, his teeth lingering on her ear before replying, "Probably about as long as I've wanted to haul up up onto the jumpseat, tear off that day's flimsy excuse for a skirt and pound into you until the only thing you can remember is my name."

Rose's breath hitched over his shoulder and he took the opportunity to reach down and hike her other leg up over his hip before pushing off the console with her wrapped around him to walk purposefully down the corridor.

"Where're we going?" Rose asked in surprise, but taking full advantage of running her tongue along his tempting collarbone into the slight dip of his clavicle she had so often lusted after.

"Plenty of time for that later," he grunted, almost stumbling as her teeth grazed his bobbing Adam's apple. They reached an unfamiliar door to Rose and he gently moved to set her down, leaning his forehead against hers and breathing heavily. "Tonight, I want to make love to you. In my bed. Repeatedly," he added, with a smirk.

Rose's heart had lit up at the mention of later, confirming her deep hope that this wasn't just a one-off for him. "Then what are we waiting for?" she asked, leaning up to kiss him gently once more.

"Nothing," he answered. "I'm not waiting any more." With that, the door behind her swung open and Rose found herself swept up into his arms once more. She didn't stay there for very long, just as quickly finding herself in the middle of a large, luxurious bed with rich navy sheets and a gorgeous dark duvet. She wanted to look around and memorize every little aspect of this place, this private space he trusted her enough to let her into but she couldn't seem to pull her gaze off the completely riveting man in front of her.

Having kicked off his boots, he was now standing at the foot of the bed watching her, his only movement the slight heave of his chest. The moment she started to feel self-conscious under his intense gaze, he moved to her so quickly she wondered if Time had flickered ahead a moment. The Doctor's hands were on her once again, tracing delicate lines up her sides, just grazing her breasts before tracing back down again. "Rose..." he panted a moment later and, at her nod, he moved back to run his hands up her thighs and grasp the bottom of the dress. She obediently raised her hands above her head and her hips from the bed and he swiftly the fabric from her body, leaving her naked and shivering under his blazing expression.

The Doctor resumed his reverent and expert touches, lingering on spots that made her cry out with pleasure, some of which she wasn't even certain she'd ever known about before. He poured everything he could into his kisses and caresses, desperate to prove to her that he could satisfy her as any human male would, desperate to show her he could make her happy. For his part, the Doctor was shocked at the familiarity of his caresses. Never one for false modesty (or modesty of any kind, really) he'd always assessed himself as a genius. He was clever, observant and a quick study at, well, practically everything, but even he had to admit it was difficult to be an expert at something one had never experienced before. Despite his boasts to Rose, he'd never actually _danced_ in this foreign, messy, brilliant fashion, yet he was playing Rose Tyler's body with all the skill of a well-studied virtuoso.

In fact, he seemed to instinctively know from the pattern of her breathing and the clenching of her muscles, that one final press of his lips against hers and his thumb against the small button (clitoris, his brain helpfully supplied) in her slick folds (labia, the enthusiastic scientist in him lectured) would send her over the edge into breath-snatching bliss. So in tune with her now, he could see and feel her mind on the outskirts of his, reaching for him, pleading for him. He tried to ignore it for the moment; she hadn't like the TARDIS in her head after all, but they craved each other so desperately she was almost an open book to him. Maybe it was this connection with her that was allowing him to pleasure her so intensely..

He kept one hand on the back of her head, holding her to him and swallowing her moans as his own, and the other drawing out the miraculous supernova of her release. When Rose finally stopped shuddering underneath him, he released her lips gently and rolled over onto his side to smile at her.

"Wow," she said, eventually, finally willing herself to look over at him. That had been...incredible. She'd always imagined the sex with the Doctor would be fantastic (and they hadn't even had sex yet!). While she was stillrRelaxing in the bliss of her release and his gentle smile, a niggling, nervous thought appeared at the edge of her consciousness. He was over nine hundred years old and had admitted to her that he'd danced...and one didn't get that good at anything without a significant amount of practice. Unwelcome thoughts drifted in further...how many had come before her? Was she just another in a long line of sexual conquests for him? That didn't seem like him, didn't seem like her Doctor, but with her first hand experience and his admission to her together...it seemed like the only conclusion.

And, oh god, how was she ever going to match up? He could have (and maybe had) anyone in the entire galaxy, trained, experienced lovers...she was just a 21st century chav. Mickey'd never complained but Jimmy, especially if he'd been drinking, would occasionally backhand her and tell her (sometimes in front of his friends) how lousy she was in the sack.

"What's wrong, love?" the Doctor asked, infinitely worried as the sated, happy expression on her face slowly crumbled and she moved a hand up to cover her breasts. He caught the hand entwined their fingers once again, bringing the joined digits up to his mouth for a sweet kiss.

_What's wrong?_, Rose thought. She felt exposed, naive and very, very nervous, laying in bed with a fully-clothed alien sex god with whom she was absolutely head-over-heels in love.

Oh, no. She'd said that out loud.

The Doctor's mouth dropped open and his bright blue eyes widened in shock. His magnificent brain was tripping over an awful lot of parts of that statement. "Alien sex god?" he eked out, feeling his Time Lord superiority was going to come into question here momentarily if, respiratory bypass or no, he managed to choke to death on oxygen and shock.

Rose blushed a fierce red and he nearly forgot how to breathe again as he traced the red tinge down her body. "Well, yeah," she said, lamely. "That was...I mean...no one's ever..." Rose could tell the moment he gained his equilibrium back if the extremely self-satisfied smirk that worked its way back across his face was any indication. Oh, he was going to be insufferable now for WEEKS.

"Told you I had the moves," he boasted, puffing up with previously unknown male pride. This however, seemed to not be the correct thing to say because Rose's arm edged up her chest again and looked nervous once more. "Rose?" he asked softly once more feeling out of his depth.

"I don't want to disappoint you," she said softly, looking up at him with wide eyes.

The Doctor moved in close to her and nudged her nose with his own. "You could never disappoint me, Rose. All of this," he said, pulling back and gesturing at their bodies, "is still us. Better with two, yeah?"

With that, she giggled and relaxed under him as he thought through exactly what he'd just said. "Dunno," Rose said, mischievously and he raised an eyebrow at her. Rose was sure that if his arms hadn't been occupied holding her close to him, he'd have just crossed them over his chest. "We haven't tried that bit yet."

"Wanna give it a go?" he asked, moving his lips down to her neck, biting and sucking and Rose gasped at the intense wave of arousal that shot through her at his possessive action.

Determined to level the playing field a bit, she leaned forward and took his earlobe into her teeth and felt his moan vibrate through her body. "There's a bit of a problem with that," she murmured into her captured prize.

His head came up off her neck comically fast, fabulous brow furrowed in concern and bright blue eyes tinged with worry. "What?" he asked.

"You still have your kit on," she laughed and after a moment he joined with her.

"Not for long," he growled, shifting off her. Rose moved to kneel on the edge of the bed, no longer feeling so self-conscious. There were more important matters at hand. Like unwrapping her alien sex-god. "Undress me," he said, the sharp, orderly tone conflicting with the plead in his eyes.

Rose reached out, using his shoulders to steady herself as she stood beside him on the floor. Tentatively, she reached out a palm and laid it flat across his solid chest, her fingers spanning out to feel the thrum of both his hearts there. He watched her with dark eyes but Rose's focus was solely on that hand as it traced down his torso and then up under the soft, gray shirt to hit skin. Taking a moment to explore what she couldn't yet see, Rose moved her other hand under the shirt as well, tracing up until her thumbs each hit a hipple, which made the Doctor hiss darkly. "Off," he commanded, reaching up and dragging her wrists down until her fingers were at the hem of his shirt. She obliged, tugging it up over his head and tossing it carelessly onto the ground, her fingers quickly working back up to the hardened peaks of his pectoral muscles once again. Unable to restrain herself, Rose leaned forward and took one in her mouth, gently laving her tongue over it. "Teeth," he growled, his hand coming up to the back of her head momentarily and Rose obliged, grasping it tightly and nipping sharply. He moaned loudly and she once again felt as though Time skipped as she suddenly ended up back on the bed, this time straddling his (sadly still-clothed) hips.

She shifted down to crouch over his thighs and let her palm press against him, then tracing the outline of him through his jeans. The Doctor thrashed underneath her and uttered a string of melodious words to her. She gently worked the button on his fly and he shouted once again as she reached into his trousers to protect him from the lowering zip. Once his trousers were undone, he lifted his hips from the bed briefly to help her get them off his narrow hips. Once she had him naked and panting underneath her, Rose was struck again with a wave of uncertainty, closing her eyes for a moment. She didn't want to seem like a fumbling adolescent to him.

Feeling a hand close around hers, Rose opened her eyes to see the Doctor watching her with an expression so filled with lust and love she thought he might catch her on fire. Keeping her gaze on his, he gently moved her hand to the proud, stiff length she'd been avoiding with her tentative caresses. The moment her warm hand connected with his steel erection, his hips shot off the bed, nearly dislodging her and he made a loud sound of approval. Squeezing him a little with a slightly firmer hand made him growl and when her tight fist began to move up and down, guided by his own, he began to swear in Gallifreyan again. After several tortuous, wonderful strokes, he let go of her hand, moving to fist the sheet beside him instead.

The Doctor was practically reeling with the sensations Rose was providing him, as her hand got braver and more adventurous, twisting and pressing. After a particularly brilliant stroke of hers that came accompanied by a twist of his nipple with her other hand, unable to take any more, he flipped them over quite suddenly so he loomed above her, his throbbing erection pressing heavily into her thigh. His hands reached out once more, one caressing her breast and the other clutching her hip, making her mewl underneath him. With one last look deep into her eyes, he thrust into her, deeply and surely, as it it was his rightful place, as if he were simply coming home once again. He moved his body expertly in hers, bringing her to the peak of satisfaction again and again, tilting his hips against hers for maximum depth and friction. Still a bit stunned by the amazing natural sexual proclivity of this body, he moved in and out of Rose like a man seeking salvation. Which, he supposed, he was. She was his Goddess, his muse, his saviour and, with one more deep stroke he would bring her to ecstasy.

And he did. Rose keened and tensed underneath him, her powerful wave of release pulling him with her as he gave a shout and followed, his arms going around to the back of her shoulders, pressing their upper bodies as close as he possibly could while their lower bodies clenched and juddered together until they both collapsed, completely spent and completely sated together.

-

Rose slowly drug herself back into consciousness, reaching out a drowsy arm for the cool body she fully expected to find in the soft, familiar sheets. When her questing hand didn't connect with a drowsy, smirking, sex-tousled Time Lord, she awoke fully with a start, remembering where and when exactly she was.

Stretching and sighing, Rose took stock of herself. Four hours of sleep. Not bad for recent developments. She hadn't been willing to admit it to Jack but her recent regeneration into this rather familiar form hadn't been an easy one, nor had transversing the Void to get here in the first place. And it had been a long time since she'd had a fully-immersed dreamscape like that, reliving a moment from her past in such vivid detail while she slept. The first few times it had happened after her initial regeneration had been so surprising she thought she might be going mad. After a while, she'd just chalked it up to her newly-superior (but occasionally infuriating) Time Lord brain.

She remembered being completely shocked (and not entirely convinced) when he had confessed to her that experience had been his first sexual encounter. He'd known exactly how to satisfy her and exactly what he wanted as well. And now she knew why.

She was just going to have to make sure that John Noble got a very thorough education.


End file.
